


my love is on the high seas

by cherrytart



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Accidental edging, Arctic Weirdness, Disability, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Intricate Rituals, Jealousy, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Child Abuse, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Pre-Canon, Seriously Sol Think It Through, Shenanigans, lads is it gay to Yearn?, lotta guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:56:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytart/pseuds/cherrytart
Summary: Keen is the right word for Armitage - he'll give Lieutenant Little that.
Relationships: Thomas Armitage/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 107
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i promised to get tommy armitage laid  
> *john mulaney voice* 
> 
> AND THEN I DIDN'T 
> 
> (yet)

“Armitage?”

“Yes.” Lieutenant Little says, looking, as he always does, like he’d much rather be elsewhere. “The gun-room steward.”

“The -” Sol rolls back on his heels a bit, very much hoping he’s misheard. Small chance of that – they’re all but alone on deck, first watch. “Lieutenant. My men need an armourer, not a maid.” If it had been Hodgson or Irving he’d not have been so blunt, but Little, he feels he can speak to man to man.

Little claps his shoulder. “I doubt we’ll be facing anything beyond a white bear or two, once we cross into the Sound. Armitage is a keen sort, Mr Jopson tells me – he’ll learn well enough.”

“Aye, sir.” Sol knuckles his forehead at Little’s retreating back, and, not for the first time, silently curses Mr Carr for the weakness for spirits that’d seen him packed off onto the _Barreto Junior_ with the rest of the infirm, not a week before they’d set out for Baffin Bay.

True, Carr was neither use nor ornament, but he can’t imagine an untrained civilian who spends his time sewing buttons and pouring allsops will be any better. He wonders how Bryant is making out, over on Erebus, if they’ve given him a replacement yet – Erebus lost their armourer too, to a woman rather than a bottle, though. Looking out over the chalk blue polar sea, Sol can’t altogether blame the man.

 _Can you see me, Caro?_ he wonders. They must be close, up here, if anywhere. Doesn’t hurt any less, to think of her, all these miles and a year and change that she’s been gone.

She’d smile, to look at him, standing on the lid of the world. _What’ve they gone and done with you now, my soldier boy?_

Fucked if he knows, that’s for certain.

He’s not entirely sure which of the white gloved officers servants Armitage _is_ , but after coming off watch and collaring one that turns out to be Gibson, he finds himself pointed with a vague sneer in the direction of a little room off the junior officers mess. The steward is there alright, back to the door and sorting through crockery. Sol clears his throat, and is ignored. Says the man’s name once, then louder.

Off to a grand start, this is. He raps the door as a warning, then strides across the cramped space and gives the steward a sharp nudge. The lad springs up like a trod-upon cat, nearly dropping the cup he’s holding to smash on the deck. He turns, clutching it to his chest as though Sol might take the idea to finish the job.

“That ain’t _funny_ , Billy, I could’ve – oh, sorry, sir. Sergeant, I mean.” Armitage’s cheeks colour. He blinks quickly – proper doe eyes, this one, Sol can’t help but think, a strikingly heady blue in contrast to the dark brows over them. He’s not had cause to make a study of the gun-room steward before today. Not much to him, and they’ll get bloody nowhere, if this is how easily he startles.

No point in pleasantries. “You bloody deaf, lad?”

“Yeah.” Not the answer he was expecting, and Armitage is blinking up at him now as though he’s stood there expounding that the water surrounding them is, in fact, wet. “On me right side, anyway.” He touches the curly locks covering that side of his head, as though Sol is like to need a demonstration of what’s where.

“Aye.” Solomon nods, because there’s little else he can do. He hadn’t meant it, its just something you _say_ , and Little, whose fault this is, might have bloody _told_ him, mightn’t he?

Armitage gives him a nervous tilt of the head. “Sorry, Sergeant. Thought you knew.”

Sol folds his arms over his chest – won’t do to let the lad get chippy, but he doesn’t seem the type to take on, at least – and Sol’s had no reason to concern himself before now. “I’ll remember,” he says. “Next time.”

~

Sergeant Tozer takes up even more space in the armoury than he did in Tommy’s cramped pantry – he doesn’t see anything wrong with claiming it as his, for its him what takes care of it, just as Jopson does the Captain’s stores. He can’t see Jopson being very impressed if Tozer tried to muscle his way in _there_ , but Tommy takes it on the chin, and follows when he’s told.

“Reckon you know much about weapons, then, Mr Armitage?” Tozer says, his arms folded up again.

Tommy ducks his head, half to avoid the swing of the just-lit-lantern, and half because Tozer’s keen hazel gaze is apt to make him redden as bright as the sergeant’s coat. “Me dad was a gunsmith,” he offers, handing down the musket Tozer wants – hadn’t had to ask which one he meant, had he? “Down Chatham dockyard. Grew up in the shop.”

After the accident, he'd been afraid to go in, but there hadn't been much choice, had there? Tommy remembers it in fragments, the noise and then the sudden silence. His mum holding onto him, _Christ on the cross_ , _what’ve you done_ _,_ and the blood on his cheek.

None of this Tozer needs to know. Foolishly, Tommy wants to impress him, with this job that’s all but fallen into his lap.

“Aye? Might be you’ll do alright.” Tozer seems to unbend a little. Marines keep themselves apart, Tommy finds, onboard ship, and Tozer’s lot are no different. Still, no harm in that – Tommy is happy to watch and listen from a distance. Give himself the odd talking to, when his daydreams get too much. Now, with Tozer, all shiny buttons and broad shoulders, blocking him into the armoury, there’s no chance of that.

The two of them hemmed in like this, it'd be easy for Tozer to box Tommy into a corner, if he wanted. Shove up against him, even, and take whatever he might. He wouldn’t mind that, either. He’s honest enough with himself to own it, but he’s not green enough to think that Tozer is – well, even if he were, what’s Tommy to him?

He says as much to Billy later, when he waggles his eyebrows and teases Tommy about running round for the marines now, too. Tommy bats it off – he knows Billy’s humour, how he don’t mean half of what he says. Knows he and Jopson talk more seriously about it, though, from how they cut off whenever he and Ned Genge come into the room some nights, like the two of them are children up past their bedtime, to be hushed with a glass of milk.

Well, that’s fine for Ned, he’s a girl back home and a baby, he’s not interested, but Tommy – he wishes Billy or Tom would tell him the secret of it, of knowing how to cast your eye at a man in a way so that he’ll look back, and know your mind. He feels trapped behind heavy curtains sometimes, waiting for them to pull back and reveal to him what everyone else just seems to _know_.

“They’re _soldiers_ , really – no match for your fine officers,” he tells Billy, which gets him neatly off the topic of the marines and onto that of Lieutenant Little’s bloody endless ink stains, would you believe.

Tommy nods along, but his thoughts are far behind him – in the close space of the armoury, smelling of leather and powder, and the heavy press of Sergeant Tozer’s hand on his arm to help him down from the box he’d stood upon to reach the gun. Better than alright, that’s what he’ll be, if it means making that man smile in his direction.

~

 _Keen_ is the right word for Armitage - he'll give Lieutenant Little that. In one of his own lads it’d worry him, this seeming lack of guile, innocent and willing as a half-trained pup. He’s not the only one who notices, either.

“Di’nt think a sheepdog was part of the deal when they signed us up,” Hammond says with a grin, and Daly cackles. “Rather have the bonus pay, meself.” Sol gives him a light slap upside the head for that, reminds him that Armitage keeps their powder now, and knows which gun has the dodgy trigger. Armitage smiles gratefully at him for it, all soft blue eyes, and does not seem to mind the ribbing.

The men take to the steward quick enough, though – not least because he’s easy access to the galley, and makes a fair cup of tea into the bargain. And for all his bright eyes, he doesn’t push himself forward, nor chatter overmuch. He ought to give back some, Sol thinks, that’d sort it better.

He doesn’t seem inclined to, though, so Sol keeps a weather eye on him as the ships cut through the gathering ice. It’s Armitage that wakes him up one morning, creeping up on deck with Gibson to look out at the shore they’ve come upon, where Sol reckons, if the whispers down from command are anything to go by, they’ll spend the bulk of the coming winter. He shrugs into his coat and boots and follows, idle curiosity more than anything.

“Beechey Island, Mr Blanky says,” Armitage tells him, once Gibson has observed the spit of rock, complained about the cold, and gone back below, leaving the two of them propped astern, looking out to what passes for the coast. “Reckon there’ll be a land camp?”

If there is to be one, nobody’s told him, though its his lads who’ll be sent off ship to do the grunt work. Sol shrugs, sets to lighting his pipe. Armitage smokes cigarettes, funny little things made from winding tobacco up in paper. Makes no sense to Sol, and he says so now.

“S’French,” Armitage tells him, as though that’s any excuse.

“You’re young,” he allows, “you’ll learn better.”

“Oh, _Methuselah_ , you are, Sergeant.” Armitage grins at him from under several layers of wool. Gibson had tucked him into an extra scarf before he left, hissing about frostbite like a mother adder.

Sol jostles him. “Cheeky.”

It’s nice, though, standing here, Armitage a steady, quiet presence at his side. Sky’s low and half-dark overhead, waves glinting off the rocks as Terror hews closer to Beechey. Quiet on a ship, of course, can’t be allowed to last.

“Tommy.” Genge’s voice, rough with early morning, hails across the deck. “Give us a hand with the basins, eh? Dunno where Billy’s got to.”

Armitage sighs, gives a slight roll of the eyes that is meant for Sol only, he thinks, stubs out his cigarette on the rail, and off he goes. The chill comes in fast, now Solomon is alone, but he can’t bring himself to go back down. Not yet.

Caroline’s hand folds about his wrist. _It’s cold. Sol, I’m so cold._ But she was burning up, then, her forehead hot against his palm, dark hair slick with sweat. He inhales deeply. Before this place, he could stop his memory in its tracks, build the walls of their little house in Portsmouth up around it - have her tucked tight against him, imagine he woke in the morning to find her fever broken. That even now she’s home, waiting for him. That he hadn’t run for the doctor, knowing as he did that it was already too late. Had long been too late. Here in the wide, yawning ice, there’s no space for such comforts.

 _Rest_ , he tries to tell her, as if she’s standing next to him on Terror’s deck, and could be banished thusly, as quick as Armitage had disappeared to the fo'c'sle. He fears to turn his head, for what he might see, or might not. And him a Marine. He bites the stem of his pipe, hard enough to hurt. 

“Sol.” Heather’s reassuring voice reaches him, and he shoves those thoughts back down where they belong. “Our Tommy said as you’d be up ‘ere.”

Sol grunts. “ _Our_ Tommy, is he, now?”

“Ain’t he?” Heather raises an eyebrow. He’s a far quicker study than Sol feels himself to be, and he’s relied on Bill’s sharp judgement more than once to come out the side of a skirmish alive. “Lad thinks you hung the moon, tell you that much.”

He doesn’t need telling. Armitage has stars in his eyes for a red jacket, well, he won’t be the first or last. He claps Heather on the arm, to show he’s understood, and digs a spare roll of tobacco out, hands it over. _Our Tommy_ , he thinks. Well, its no skin off his nose.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Buck up, city lad.” Sol tells him, as if he weren’t raised a mile from the Liverpool docks himself. “Eat or be eaten, out here.”_

“Sergeant Tozer reckons it were a white bear.”

Tommy is elbows deep in suds, cuffs damp and backs of his feet aching from standing so long, and it takes him a moment to realise what Private Wilkes is saying, or that he’s even saying it to Tommy in the first place. “Well hurry up, then,” Wilkes continues, when Tommy shows no signs of moving.

Jopson will have his guts for garters. Tommy decides he doesn’t care. He slides the breakfast dishes back into the basin, telling himself as he does so that porridge needs time to soak off anyhow, specially the way Mr Diggle does it, and follows Wilkes without even stopping to dry his hands.

He unlocks the armoury with soap clinging to his wrists, listens to the men shouting excitedly to one another up above.

 _This is what it_ _must_ _be like_ , he thinks, _to be a marine in truth_.

The days are shorter now, and the men have brought in water birds and arctic foxes since they weighed anchor at Beechey, but this is the first sight of one of the great northern bears. It’ll be a feather in Terror’s cap, Tommy knows, should any of their crewmen bring it in.

“Christ, you lot, any slower and we’ll be fuckin’ lifting anchor.” That’s Tozer – not hard to tell, with his deep, drawling voice that makes Tommy’s chest go tight. He’d thought he’d get used to it, given their new proximity, but its only made him notice other things – the quirk of Tozer’s lips at a good joke, or the strength in his hands even over a round of cards or the stem of his pipe. He’s the kind of bloke its impossible not to like, and Tommy knows that even if he weren’t as he is, he reckons he’d do just about anything for Sergeant Tozer.

But he _is_ as he is, has known since as long as he can honestly remember, and sometimes he thinks he’ll die of it, all this wanting. He stores up scraps of Tozer’s favour, muttered thank-yous and shared tobacco, lets them sit warm in his aching belly. It’s enough that Tozer looks at him at all. He can’t go expecting any more than that, or he’ll drive himself mad.

Tommy does his job. Hands over the guns, checks them off against the list he’s keeping, which Mr Carr left in a poor state, and Tommy feels his own indifferent writing is not improving. The marines seem satisfied enough with the work Tommy’s doing, though, and Tozer even claps his arm before he leaves, a touch that Tommy feels all the way to his bones. “Wish us luck, eh Tommy?”

He does, unable to keep from grinning all over his face. He wants desperately to go with them, even if only to fetch and carry — to prove to them, to Tozer especially, that he can be relied on in this as well – but that’s hardly his place, is it?

“’Ere, Tommy, you could give us a good luck kiss and all.” Private Daly jokes, leaning his considerable height over Tommy – his voice is all mockery, but his eyes are very dark, settling down on Tommy’s mouth, which he’s been told before he ought to know what to do with.

“Get out of it, Jim,” Tozer says roughly, giving Daly a nudge with his boot. “Full of it, that one,” Tozer shakes his head — which Tommy knew already. He’s not fool enough to take that lot serious – they’ll nip and tug, but they won’t sink their teeth in, not so long as he’s careful.

He’d kiss Tozer, though, if the other man wanted. A kiss for luck, for victory, for all the rattling need of it he finds himself unable to get rid of (he does not _want_ to be rid of, truth told). He settles for laughing, instead, and turns away as they leave, so Tozer will not see the shame and longing mingled in his face.

It’s not so bad as all that, or it needn’t be. Tommy knows he’s a more than a bit easy, when it comes to men in uniform. Been like that ever since he was a kid seeing the ships come in at the dockyard. It’s the kind of thing that’d see him in awful sorts of trouble if he was a girl, for he’d lift his skirts up as quick as you like, and damn the consequences. Wouldn’t half upset his mother.

In that way he supposes he’s lucky, that its only his own nature that’s against him. Doesn’t stop him from counting the minutes till the marines return, though – chased in on flurries of late afternoon snow, and with no bear to be seen.

“Pilkington reckons he’d sight of it heading over the north-east ridge,” Hammond says, accepting a mug of hot rum from Tommy.

“Pilkington can see that far up, can he?” Wilkes snorts. This gets a laugh even from Corporal Hedges, who’s usually glum as you like, or at least has one of them faces that makes you think so without him saying much.

Tommy busies himself sorting drinks for the rest of them, which isn’t at all his job, but he’s the time, for all he can feel Mr Lane’s eyes on his back – Mr Blanky’s in with the Captain, the surgeons closeted in sickbay, rest of the mates are who knows where, and dinner service more than an hour away yet.

“You should come along with us next time, tell you what, Tommy,” Wilkes says, elbowing him. “Can’t do a worse job than them Erebites.”

It’s joshing, is all it is, and its on the tip of Tommy’s tongue to refuse, make a light of it, only a couple of the others are nodding, and Private Heather, whose opinion carries, gives a pointed glance to the Sergeant. Tozer levels a hard look at Tommy, and he feels his back straighten. If its only a lark, then fine, he’ll bear up, but if not...

“They’ve an unfair advantage, if you think about it,” Daly puts in. “More of ‘em than us. Feckin’ lark if they catch us out, when it were us that spotted it.” The rest of them make noises of agreement.

Tozer raises an eyebrow, looking round his men, then leans forward against the table. Looks directly at Tommy, now, and half grins. “’S a fair idea. What d’you think, Tommy, lad? You up for it?”

He might be joking, still, but Tommy can play that game well enough. He tips his head, smiles right back. “If it gets me off of laundry duty, Sergeant – well, I’ll try anything once.”

~

It’s not a bad idea, bringing Armitage along. They’re a marine short, and Bryant acts like it’s Sol’s fault somehow, as though he ought to have plucked Aitken back off the _Barreto_ so the poor bloke could cough his guts up where Queen and Country intended him to.

Thing is, Sol makes sure he knows his men. He’s the names of all five of Heather and his sweet Janie’s kids off by heart – though he’s godfather to the twins, so it’d be a poor show if he didn’t, he supposes. Knows Hedges wrote a letter a week to his wife all the way to Greenland, has a lock of her hair pressed into his bible. Daly can mouth off with the best of ‘em, but Sol’s well aware he keeps rosary beads hidden in his sea chest.

He knows Wilkes sends his pay to his brother’s widow, who he loves and won’t speak of, that Hammond joined up rather than face the rope, though for what he’s not yet sure – and he knew from the first that Aitken, lungs full of shrapnel, shouldn’t have been dragged into this bloody circus in the first place. Sol had sent silent thanks to whatever power watched over them when Doctor Peddie insisted they send him back. No matter how Bryant might scowl over it.

Fuck knows, the admiralty isn’t minded to listen to Solomon Tozer on any matters that count, no matter the stripes on his sleeves. He takes his advantages where he can, then. And Armitage – well, he thinks he might as well start counting the gun-room steward among them.

Armitage looks at him wide eyed when Sol hands him the musket. “For true?” he asks, worrying his teeth into his lip – his face all red and white and stung with the cold.

“Just don’t drop it, is all,” Sol tells him, and he means it, right enough. Armitage can talk a fair game when it comes to guns, but Sol isn’t too sure of letting him handle one under the dubious supervision of Wilkes or Hammond, not after that disaster with the Captain’s pistol, so he sends them off with Heather, packs a glowering Daly east with Hedges, to keep an eye on the Erebites, and he and Tommy head north, off the wide sea of ice and onto the hard gravel shore of the island.

“What'd it look like?” Armitage asks him, once they’re a half mile out, no sound between them but the scrape of the rock under their boots, an easy silence Sol wasn’t minded to break. “The bear?”

“Only saw the back end of it,” he admits, not knowing quite why he’s doing so, “Could’ve been a fat one of them foxes, all I know.”

“But you don’t think it was,” Tommy says, in that strange serious way he has, a shine in his eyes that makes Sol feel odd, a bit full of himself, like he’s already shot ten bears and laid them at the lad’s feet for his appraisal.

He shoulders his musket, falling back to walk alongside Tommy — keeps on his left side, best he can. “Ground’s shite for tracking,” he says, thinking he may as well teach the lad something, having dragged him from his duties. “But you see that there, where the turf’s torn up?” Tommy looks where he’s pointing, nods. “Don’t reckon anything light on its feet could’ve caused it.”

They follow the ridge along a little way before Tommy stops. “Is that…”

“Fuck me.” Sol breathes out, long and low. Up ahead, a white shape is standing stock still – far bigger than any fox they’ve run across, that’s for certain. He’s at a bad angle for a shot without going closer and startling the bear, but Tommy has it dead straight from where he’s standing. “Go on.”

The steward opens his mouth, same as he had when Sol handed him the gun, but then he closes it again, a determined set to his face. Good lad – Sol nods, and Tommy, shoulders rigid, takes the shot.

Sol has to hold back a whoop of delight, because Tommy Armitage is a god-damned _natural_. The bear drops clean onto the shale, and he reaches out to cuff Tommy’s shoulder, beams at him.

“I thought I…” Tommy shakes his head a little, breathing out, curls falling over his forehead from under his hat – he can’t quite believe what he’s done, and Sol well remembers that feeling.

A crunch of gravel catches them both then – Tommy turns, likely thinking its some of the men, but Sol sees over his shoulder, and moves on instinct – shoulders the lad aside and fires wildly in the direction of the larger bear coming over the ridge, which gives a roar as the pellet hits it in the side. “Came from fucking nowhere!” The live bear is moving off already, faster than an injured animal has any right to, as far as Sol’s concerned.

“Sergeant?” Tommy’s gone pale.

“Reckon you better call me Sol,” he tells him, leaning forward to get his breath back. “C’mon.” Guns still raised, in case the injured bear takes the idea to circle back around them, they approach the body of the smaller animal. A good bit smaller, close on. “Lookit that, then. Right between the eyes.” A cleaner shot Sol has never seen, but you’d not think it to look at Armitage, who stares at the bear, at the dab of blood on that white fur, with his brows lowered.

“Was only young, wasn’t it?” Tommy says, once he realises Sol is waiting for him to speak. “I shouldn’t…”

“Buck up, city lad.” Sol tells him, as if he weren’t raised a mile from the Liverpool docks himself. He knows how it can take you, though, a first kill – even an animal. “Eat or be eaten, out here.”

Armitage huffs a slight laugh, quiet like the rest of him. “S’pose you’re right an’ all.”

“That sow’ll have others,” Sol tells him – doesn’t seem like his own shot more than scratched the beast. “Better we took the cub than her.”

Armitage nods, and comes to help Sol lift the cub – its heavy, for all its not full grown. The steward is thoughtful, though, on the way back to the ships, where they’re met with cheers from the Terrors – even Lieutenant Little cracks a smile – and sour looks from Bryant’s lot. Diggle bears the carcass off to be skinned, promising Sol first refusal on the pelt. “Knew you’d get it, sir,” Hammond grins, and Sol shakes his head.

“All Tommy, it was,” he says, and shoves Armitage forward when he tries to slink off. The lads whoop and fuss over him, though Sol draws the line at letting Hammond and Daly parade him round on their shoulders. Armitage thanks him for it – might be to do with his ear, but the lad tells him after he’s no head for heights. Sets a nice cap on the day, seeing Tommy smile.

“Should have tried for a uniform, lad,” he remarks later, when he and Armitage are alone in the armoury, that same companionable silence between them as they clean the muskets and stow them safe away.

Armitage’s mouth quirks. “Thought about it.” He rubs the cloth he’s holding slow against the muzzle of the gun. Gives Sol a smart of pride to watch him, much the same as when he took the shot earlier. “Didn’t like me chances much.” He makes a half gesture towards his bad ear.

Now there’s a crying shame, Sol thinks. “Could've gulled ‘em,” he says, because the idea of Armitage in a red coat, one of Sol’s own privates – well, that’s something, isn’t it? It’d look well on him, with his dark hair and fine features.

Tommy gives a little shake of the head. “Not with this.” He lifts his hair, fingers parting that thicket of curls, and Sol sees his ear properly for the first time – or rather, what’s left of it. The flesh is blackish-red, macerated, a raw and ugly sight.

He hisses between his teeth, as much in sympathy as anything. “The fuck did that, lad?”

There’s a pause. “Me dad.” Tommy isn’t looking at him, now.

“ _What?”_ Surely he hasn’t heard right.

Tommy shrugs a little, and Sol can see he’s ashamed. He puts down the gun he’s holding, goes over and pushes into a space on the bench next to him, right alongside, gives him a nudge, only gentle, to let him know its alright to speak. “He didn’t mean it. Was the drink. S’what me mum said, after.”

“Good fuckin’ god, Tommy.”

“Don’t,” Tommy shakes his head. “He...it were my fault, really. Caught me with an old pistol, in the back of the shop. Playing at soldiers with me cousins, y’know? But we weren’t supposed to touch. Dad, he wanted to teach me a lesson, I s’pose. Fired it near my head.”

Sol can feel bile rising in his throat. “That’s no lesson, lad.” Cruelty, he thinks, would be a better word, but from the expression on Tommy’s face, he knows it well enough.

“I was very small,” Tommy says, as though that makes it better, that his own father would do that to him. Solomon, who knew nothing but gentleness from his parents, even stretched thin and poor as they were, twelve kids on a currier’s wage, cannot fathom it. Tommy stops then, and looks at him. “I – I don’t usually tell people. An accident in the shop, was what was always said.”

Simpler. Sol can see that. He nudges Tommy again. “You’d never know otherwise,” he assures him, and ruffles his dark hair – a promise, if you like, that there’s none that’ll hear any different from him.

~

Torrington makes a face when Doctor MacDonald asks him to remove his shirt. “What for, then?” he asks, croak in his voice from all that engine smoke. Boilers been running as hot as ever it has the past few weeks, in spite of the fact they’re going nowhere. Tommy, restocking the cabinets with cloth and towels at the back of sickbay, looks round to see the stoker doing as he’s told, and almost flinches.

Jack’s a skinny bloke, right enough, always has been, but he’s all bones without his shirt, and the Doctor clicks his tongue. “Breathe in,” he orders, ear to Torrington’s chest, and his frown deepens at whatever he hears.

“Nothin’ wrong with me a kip won’t cure, doctor,” Torrington grins, “Only came up on account of Bill fretting me.”

If he was Mr Johnson, he’d fret too, Tommy thinks, as Torrington coughs sharply into his arm. Tommy fumbles for a spare cloth before MacDonald can signal – if there’s one thing being a steward teaches you, its how to anticipate a spillage.

Torrington tries to wave him off, but he’s coughing like a train, and the doctor takes the cloth and presses it to the lad’s face. When the noise peters off, the cloth comes away pink with blood. Nothing shows on MacDonald’s face, but Tommy can tell he’s thinking hard. Gladder than he’s yet realised that he’s not got the health of the crew on his shoulders, Tommy takes the cloth when the doctor hands it to him, shutting the cabinet doors and beating a hasty retreat from sickbay.

He’s not thinking much beyond getting to the galley and begging a bowl of ice water from Mr Diggle to soak the cloth in, so he jumps when a hand comes down on his arm and a pair of red coats block his vision.

“You alright, Tommy?” Private Hammond makes a grab for the cloth, and frowns when Tommy steps back. He doesn’t want blood over everything, is all, but Hammond exchanges a look with Private Heather next to him, and Tommy realises they’re worried.

“S’ going on?” Oh, wonderful – Sergeant Tozer – Sol, he said to call him Sol, and the thought rises a thickness in Tommy’s throat – peers over Hammond’s shoulder. As if he'd not already made a prize idiot of himself, morbing about his bloody dad, who’s two years dead anyhow, and can't give mum any more grief - and Tozer has surely been far kinder than he deserves.

“Nothing – just came from sickbay. Doctor asked me to take this to the laundry,” Tommy says hastily, balling the cloth up in his hands.

“Someone ill?” Heather asks.

Tommy shouldn’t gossip, but it’ll get out anyhow. Nothing stays secret long on a ship. He tells them, briefly, about Torrington.

“Lad wants a square meal in him, I reckon,” Heather opines, settling back at the table where the marines take their evening mess and beginning to pack his pipe.

“Well you’d know about that, wouldn’t you, Bill,” Tozer says, grinning broadly. The men laugh, and Tommy turns to go – they’re on his right side, and it takes a second before he realises Tozer is following him, probably wanting a second drink, which Diggle can easily be persuaded into doling out if there’s no officers earwigging.

“Steady as she goes, Tommy,” Solomon says, putting out a hand to stop him from tripping over the Sergeant’s boots. It’s nothing, really – an easy touch, and Tozer’s not shy about things, not with his own men, of which Tommy reckons he’s at least halfway to being. But when Tozer’s thick fingers fold round his wrist, grazing bare skin for all of five seconds, before he pulls off and claps Tommy’s shoulder, the way he’d do to any mate – Tommy shuts his eyes briefly. His dumb ear goes hot, from the blood pounding in his head.

He stands through dinner in the gun-room in a daze, only not spilling the liquor over the table through long practice and muscle memory. He’s half furious with himself for being so soft, but how’s he supposed to help it?

When he sits on his bunk later, he’s almost shaking, as if he’s sickening for sugar. He rolls up his sleeve, and lays his own fingers over his wrist, a poor mirror of Tozer’s. Closes his eyes, and knocks his head back sharp against the bulkhead, unable to stop himself from chasing the memory of that touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can come yell at me about cold boys on [twitter](https://twitter.com/itgottheleg).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“S’ the job, is all. Reckon I’d be right shite at table service,” Sol says, “That and hemming hankies.” Tommy shakes his head. “Shouldn’t do yourself down. I’ve seen you darning your socks, Sergeant Tozer. Mr Jopson could have you trained up in no time. White gloves and all.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes every chapter is going to be at least a third longer than the last, thankyou and goodnight

It’s supposed to be soup, apparently, though it resembles nothing of that description Sol has ever seen. “Give me salt beef any day,” he says to Heather, who snorts. But its Sunday, and the crew are granted the same dinner fare as the officers, or at least the choicer cans, perhaps as recompense for sitting through divine service - though he hears it goes on twice as long on Erebus.

He’s had many a Sunday on board ship and many a captain, all with their different devotions. Crozier tends to bark his way through as quick as possible, or yield to Lieutenant Irving, who shows a slip of a Scotch accent in his fervour when he starts up preaching. He’s the only one of the senior officers who carries on such. Little avoids the service hour like its his job, and Hodgson, though present, always seems vaguely as though he’s off somewhere else in his head.

It’s much of a muchness to Sol. He thinks, when he thinks on it at all, of his mother’s god of incense and coloured glass, his father’s built from works of hands – of the god his grandmother left behind in her hilltop town in Russia, far too heavy to carry. Sol has broad shoulders, though, always has done. Reckons there’s no harm in it, hedging his bets. Never know when you might need one or the other.

 _Don’t let me dad hear you talk like that_ , Caro had said, when he’d had a few, and tried to explain it to her. _He’ll call the whole thing off._

 _Let him try,_ he thinks he said, or something to that effect. Sol blinks the thought away and scrapes his biscuit along the bowl. “Seen Tommy?” It’s an idle question, only he’s gotten used to the lad being about, is all, humming tunelessly over some piecework or other in the afternoons, when he’s not serving the officers, and he ought not to be at that now.

“Not since last watch,” Heather shakes his head, then looks up, “- oh, tell a lie, there he is.” Twisting to look in the same direction, Sol can see Tommy, or rather just the top of his curly head, visible over the pile of heavy sailcloth in his arms.

“Back in a minute,” he says, and ignores Heather’s muttered _mother hen_ and Wilkes’ answering snicker in favour of pushing back his sea chest and going over to stop in Tommy’s way. “S’all this, then?” He doesn’t feel any guilt in waylaying him – lad looks like he might well keel over under the weight of all that canvas, and Sol reaches out to take half the load.

“Said I’d help Henry – Mr Peglar, I mean, with moving the cloth for the covers, an’ bringing the ropes down. Daylight’s nearly past now, ain’t it? Cold enough.”

He’s not wrong. Sol reckons he and the lads will be out helping to settle the winter covers on Terror’s deck before the weeks end, come to it. It’s not an idea many of them are easy with, polar night. Those men who were with the Captain in the Antarctic like to go on about how a man’ll prove his mettle if he can come out the other side of such a winter, and they claim not many do. Sol reckons they’ve never met a marine worth his salt before, is all, so his lads have no need to fret over such talk.

More pressing, though, is that he doesn’t count Peglar among the gun-room officers, Captain of the Foretop or not, so what's Tommy doing marching to his drum? “You’ll miss your share,” he says, for starters, “Got duty owing?”

“Not me,” Tommy grins, “here, save me some, yeah?”

Sol nods, course he will, Tommy misses a meal and he might well wither away, but he finds he’d much rather tell _Mr Peglar_ to get his own...well, whatever it is Tommy is, he’s Sol’s business, and he’s not overmuch fond of seeing him playing dogsbody to the petty officers. Specially in the biting wind up on deck.

There’s no way he can say so and not sound cracked, though, so when Peglar peers down the ladder and asks, grinning, if Tommy means to take all day, and reaches out for the sailcloth Sol’s holding, he passes it over without a word, and heads back to the others. A hand of cards and a drink will sort him well enough.

The soup is long gone by the time Tommy reappears, and the lads off on afternoon watch, but Sol has scrounged up some pork ends and leftover hard-tack from Diggle. “Bravest thing I’ve ever done,” he tells Tommy, who’s blowing into his hands to warm them, pink standing out on his nose and fingertips. Sol clicks his tongue, reaches over and takes hold of his hands, chafes them between his own, front to back, as a quick way to warm him. Armitage makes a short sound of surprise, but lets him.

Tommy’s hands aren’t small, but under his own they seem so, white where they’re not red with cold – nails well scrubbed and pink, a scattering of dark hair near his wrists. His palms are smooth, but the tips of his fingers are callused from needle and thread and dishwater, like a woman’s. He curls his thumb in against Sol’s palm, very neat, before he pulls his hands back.

“Thanks,” Tommy murmurs. He looks down at his hands, the raw skin, and sniffs a laugh. “Me mum, she said, _be sure you wrap up, Tommy_. When I told her we were on a polar voyage. Like I was off down the street for buns.”

His own mother would likely have said _well_ , _the more fool you_ , _Solomon Tozer_ , and not quietly, were she still living. “Takes all sorts,” he says, the uncertain look on Tommy’s face getting to him, “When Bill and I, we were out in Africa, we’d take our shirts off and lie under the dugout – alright for him, he’s hairier than one of them bears out on the ice, thick skinned. Me, I burned like a rick. Nowt like it.” He can feel it still, almost – slow rolling sun like molasses, baking in the air around them. The sides of his legs streaked pink as ham hocks, and the bone deep pain in his skin, peeling away across the next days like paper. He’d never been gladder to leave a place.

“England’s almost nothing, isn’t it?” Tommy says, thoughtfully. “Feels like.”

“Here — _w_ _e’re_ England,” Sol says, because if he’s sure of anything, its that. He reaches over and taps the bulkhead Tommy’s leaning against, well-carved oak. “Solid, all through.”

Tommy nips at his lip, as though to close himself against saying something. He’s a tender look to his mouth, Tommy has. Like it’d be soft to touch. Daft thing to think, maybe, but Tommy’s got that way about him, in the turn of his head and his way of listening with his whole self – aye, he’s right nice to look at, Sol wouldn’t say otherwise, and he knows there’s others who’d say more. Being looked at so, all keen bright eyes, that’s nicer still.

“You make things so neat,” Tommy says, that big grin splitting his face, like he’s _grateful,_ just for Sol’s half formed attempts at understanding. “Wish I’d the knack for it.”

“S’ the job, is all. Reckon I’d be right shite at table service,” Sol says, “That and hemming hankies.”

Tommy shakes his head. “Shouldn’t do yourself down. I’ve seen you darning your socks, Sergeant Tozer. Mr Jopson could have you trained up in no time. White gloves and all.”

“No bloody fear,” Sol says, meaning it. “I’ll have you, or nowt.” And just as well he knows it, he thinks, even as Tommy looks away.

~

The racket in the galley after dinner service doesn’t bother Tommy, precisely, but he needs to turn his head like a bloody owl to catch all of what’s being said, and he’s always relieved when the men go back up and things are quieter. Well, aside from Billy sniping, but that’s as familiar as the noise of the stove to him now.

“What I don’t understand is what they expect us to do about it,” he’s saying, ‘it’ being the laundry. They’ve been hanging the washing up on deck to dry in the cold arctic sun – an hour or so only, so the damp’ll snap out without it freezing, and then taking it down to the Orlop to dry proper.

“Make do, I suppose,” Tommy says, before Jopson can say the same thing and make it a reprimand. He likes Tom alright, but he ain’t half a tartar sometimes. Must come from being so close to command, Tommy reckons.

“Alright for you to say, your lot don’t expect London standards,” Billy says, from the stool he’s sat on to dry the glassware.

“Hark at you,” Ned laughs, on his way past with the waste water. “Not exactly Mivart's of Mayfair, is it, out here?”

“S’ what the officers are used to, though, ain’t it?” Tom says evenly. “Here, Tommy, think the Sergeant wants you.” He gestures with his cloth, and Tommy swivels on his feet to see Tozer, who grins at him, and he’s grateful for the heat of the galley so that he doesn’t have to explain the warmth in his cheeks to himself.

“Give us a hand on deck, Tommy,” It’s not a question, or rather it is, but Tozer has no intent or need of him answering, as Tommy quickly drops the napkins he’d been pressing and takes off his apron. Tozer smiles wider, then raises an eyebrow. “Need an extra body for putting up the covers. Alright with you, Mr Jopson?”

Jopson doesn’t lower himself to _glare_ , as such – in fact his face hardly ever seems to waver from his usual calm, good-humoured attentiveness, but for a slight quirk in his mouth, which he shows now. Would have been better if Tozer hadn’t asked, Tommy thinks. “As you like, Sergeant Tozer. Tommy, put those away before you go up.”

Tommy hastens to do as he’s told. “Be a minute,” he tells Solomon — to say his name, even in the privacy of his thoughts, gives Tommy a hot spike of mingled pride and longing, but he won’t think on it, not today – nor on the fact that Tozer could have asked any one of the A.Bs, even if most of them are gone to Erebus for an address from Sir John. But he hasn’t, he’s asked Tommy, and...he shouldn’t, he _shouldn’t_ let himself get tangled up over it. Knows he will, anyhow. Tozer nods, heads off up the ladder.

“An’ how comes you get to shirk off then, Tommy?” Genge asks, once he’s going back through the galley. Jopson’s disappeared somewhere, back to the Great Cabin, most likely.

“Cos I make myself agreeable,” he says, pulling on his muffler. “You want to try it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re _very_ agreeable,” Billy smirks, “Polishing Tozer’s boots for him?”

“Sod off,” Tommy tells him, but in an undertone, because Lieutenant Irving’s just come down, and another lecture on language befitting a steward of Her Majesties Navy is the last thing he needs. Billy smirks, and Ned rolls his eyes at both of them, good natured, and waves Tommy off with his dishcloth.

It’s snowing outside, just light drifts settling on the deck. Tommy pokes his tongue out to catch it, tastes November at the dockyard, hard white sun and mud. The ship moves hardly at all, now, occasional jolts as the ice settles around them. Light's low, even this early, and the men working are doing so with lamps and hurried movements.

“Last we’ll see for a while, they reckon,” Tozer says, nodding at the white line of the sky, already streaking grey. He turns, pulling Tommy where he wants him, takes an end of sailcloth and stretches it taut. Tommy goes gladly, takes the rope and ties it fast to the gunwale. _I’ll have you, or nowt_ , he thinks, and the memory works through him like a hot brand.

Tozer hadn’t meant anything by it, of course he hadn’t, but Tommy can tell himself that ‘til the cows came home, and it’ll make not a blind bit of difference – it hadn’t, had it, when he’d curled into his bunk the other night, pressed his hand against himself through his smalls, teeth grit and eyes tight shut as he brought himself off, thinking of Tozer’s smile and the broad weight of him alongside Tommy, Tozer on top of him with his muscled thighs either side of Tommy’s waist, leaning down to kiss him with teeth and tongue —he’d go wherever he was wanted, if it was Solomon’s wish.

Sol, who’s not looking at Tommy, thankfully, and is inspecting the cover instead. “You’d be better to have a sailor do it,” Tommy starts – far be it for the whole ship to suffer because he’s too much of a fool for the man in front of him to say no. “Billy’d know, he used to -”

“What, _Gibson_?” Hammond, jumping down from where he’d been fastening the top ties, asks, frowning.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “He was a seaman before – on _Wanderer_. Din’t have the rate to join as an AB on _Terror_.”

Tozer snorts, clapping Tommy’s shoulder – its as sweet as ever, his regard, but Tommy half wishes he wouldn’t. Would be easier. He wouldn’t have to imagine, then, that perhaps Tozer holds on a second longer than is proper. “Rum lot, you stewards. Fancy Mr Jopson’d nip me if I got too close.”

“Tom’s particular, is all,” Tommy assures him, because its true, and he can’t grudge it of Jopson, who’ll readily admit he was raised in a rookery off the Marylebone road, and has risen as far as this by wits as much as luck, Tommy thinks.

“Fancies himself a cut above, you mean,” Hammond says, and Wilkes nods in agreement from the port side. They’re under the cover now, and Tommy can imagine how close it’ll be in here, once the polar night sets in, the smoke from the lamps thickening the musty dark. For now, its cheerful enough, with the last of the daylight filtering through the gaps in the canvas as they work.

“He has to, I reckon,” Tozer surprises them all by saying. “Captain’s man.”

That looks like the final word on the subject, to Tommy’s relief. He doesn’t worry quite so much, any more, that he’ll say the wrong thing, reveal too much of himself. He’s learnt, watched, knows when to talk and when to pull back, or hopes he does, at least. Otherwise, he might’ve told Solomon that his mother had only told him to wrap up when she finished crying, when he told her where he was going that cool April day.

It’s not that he’d wanted to leave so badly, but – three years, maybe as many of five, of discovery service pay? Let alone the shine to his record for such service. It’ll be enough to guarantee him another posting, and the money in the meantime will keep his mum in the neat rooms she’s rented since the shop was closed. He’ll not see her taking in laundry, nor sewing painstaking stitches in gentlemen's shirts for a pittance, not if he can help it. 

No one’s here for the view, Billy likes to say, and Tommy knows it better than most. Still, its not half bad, he thinks, once they’re through with the covers. He stands at the starboard gunwale with the rest of the marines, watching the sky darken in a swell of blue-grey cloud coming in from the west. Soon they’ll not be able to see the shore of Beechey, less its by lamplight.

“Was talking to Will Reed – he says word on Erebus is, this’ll be our only time, wintering over. Sir John wants us going south, reckons we’ll break through the ice on the coastline,” Daly says after a while. Nudges Hammond. “Don't he, Johnny?”

“Sir John tell Reed himself, did he?” Hedges snorts.

“He heard Commander Fitzjames speaking to First Lieutenant Gore, he said,” Hammond puts in. “You’ll see your Eliza again by next Michaelmas, how's that?”

Hedges sighs, after a moment, and Tommy sees him knock his hand against the rail.

On Tommy’s right, Tozer casts his eye at the horizon. Tommy cocks his head to hear him when he speaks. “Ought not test fate, aye lads?” There’s a moment’s silence, and then a murmur of agreement. Still, Tommy feels held on the edge of something, bright and yawning as the polar sky in summer. Glory, perhaps. Might be Tozer feels it too, because he glances sideways at Tommy, then straightens. “Let’s get below.”

~

“Here, Tommy, wake up.” Armitage sleeps on his front, one arm stretched up to the bulkhead, which is a stupid thing to do, he’ll get light-headed. Sol crouches down next to the steward’s berth and gets a light grip round his curls, gives a tug. His hair is that soft he almost digs his hand in deeper, just for the feel of it. 

“ _Mmn_ , fuck off, s’too early…” Tommy mumbles, clutching at his pillow and trying to squirm away from Sol’s hand.

“Kiss your mother with that mouth, Tommy boy?” Sol asks, unable to keep from grinning. It starts a warm feeling in him, seeing Tommy all curled up and pliant like this. He almost wishes he’d left him to sleep – fuck knows the lad works hard enough. Too late now, though. His head jolts up and he looks at Sol, bleary eyed.

“Sergeant?”

“Told you, call me Sol. C’mon and look – sky’s all lit up.”

Groaning, Tommy tips himself out of bed. He sleeps, it seems, in his shirt and socks, which, Sol reasons, is perfectly natural, and should be no cause for alarm to him, let alone a twitch low in his gut when Armitage pulls his trousers from the end of the bunk and bends to tug them on, thumbing his braces over his shoulders so the fabric snaps taut, and the breeches cling just so to his backside.

“Wig’s in the drawer,” Tommy mumbles, through a mouthful of wool jumper being pulled over his head, and Sol realises that he’s in the way, leaning against it while he ogles the poor lad like some Picadilly pimp. He shifts and opens the top drawer, finds Tommy’s welsh wig and tosses it to him. Been at sea too long, that’s all it is. These things can strike a man, sudden and without warning.

“You’ll do,” he tells Tommy, once he’s tugged the wig on and wound his muffler across his neck. His eyes stand out, crocus blue and heavy, and Sol reckons he’s never seen the like, nor will again.

Plenty else to look at up on deck, once they’re out the covers. “ _Aurora borealis_ ,” Lieutenant Hodgson is opining to a cluster of A.B.s and a long suffering Mr Hornby, “from the Latin – the northern lights. Though quite the more proper title in this case would be _Aurora polaris_ , for Captain Crozier assures me we are now quite within reach of the North magnetic Pole.”

Sol finds Heather and Daly, stood far enough away from the rest to be quiet, and Tommy scrambles atop an overturned jolly boat to get a better view. Sol leans in to steady him, propping himself against the hull. “You ever see anything like this?” Tommy asks, the lights playing over his face, lit up like a fairground.

Sol shakes his head. “Not quite.” Nor the lights, for that matter. All his service has been in warmer climes – Portugal, Malta, that stint in Africa, too, back when he made Corporal. Never thought he’d pitch up in the discovery service, but that’s luck for you.

Heather’s thinking the same, if the dig in the ribs he receives is anything to go by. “Remember Lisbon, Sol?”

“Remember we nearly had to send you back to your missus in pieces, aye,” he laughs.

“She might’ve thanked you for it – was after that we had Kitty and Ben.”

Sol snorts. He can well remember Jane, red in the face from one birth, threatening to clobber Bill when the midwife told her there was another yet to come. Sol had dragged him to the pub and kept him there, got him good and plastered to keep him from fretting. It’d seemed a laugh, then. “Didn’t stop you getting the next two on her, far as I recall.”

“In bed with ‘em, were you, Sergeant?” Daly grins, dancing out of reach round the jolly boat before Sol can smack him. “Tommy, help,” he laughs, when Heather nearly scalps him, clambering up behind Armitage.

“You’re on your own, mate,” Tommy says, only for Daly to cling onto him, head over his shoulder. Lad doesn’t try and push the great idiot off, only laughs. Sol’s of a mind to drag him down himself, but he’d have to set down his pipe to do it.

“Youth these days. No respect,” Heather shakes his head, grinning.

“Oh, I’ve a fine respect for your lady wife, Bill. Sure and she’s a saint to put up with you.” Daly has an arm right across Armitage’s shoulder, now, and Tommy still isn’t doing anything to shift him. Sol wonders if the lad’s half asleep, but he’s smiling, still, least until Daly turns his attention to him. “What about you, then, Tommy? You got a girl back home?”

Tommy rubs at his eyes. “Nah, not me.”

“Pretty face like yours?” Sol says, turning to lean back against the gun-whale. It’s true, ain’t it? Tommy must know it, surely. “Come off it. Must’ve been chasing you down second you stepped foot in port.”

Tommy shrugs, or tries to, with Daly hanging off him its a hard job, look of things. Sol finishes his pipe and looks at Tommy a bit harder – he can’t tell under the greenish light above them, but he’d wager the lad is blushing.

Daly notices as well. “Aww, Tommy. No need to get shy on us, now. Ain’t as though you’re a maiden, now, is it?” This, finally, is enough for Tommy to jab him with an elbow, and he falls back easily enough, cackling. “Oh, you never _are_?”

“None of your business, is what I am,” Tommy says, all stewardly hauteur he must’ve picked up from Mr Jopson, but Sol reckons Daly, for all his front, has the nail right on the head for once. He exchanges a look with Heather, who only raises his eyebrows.

“Here, Tommy, don’t fret,” Sol says, drawing Daly’s attention away from Armitage. “There’s Oahu waiting, still. Get you a nice girl there, sort you out proper.” He means it and all – not right for a man to go without, and Tommy must be what – twenty? That at least, Sol reckons.

“Wouldn’t want you putting yourself out, Sergeant,” Tommy says after a moment, an odd sort of catch in his voice, half his usual soft humour, but something else too. Happen he’s embarrassed, perhaps. Daly laughs again, poking Tommy in the leg. Tommy makes as if to push him off the jolly boat, but only ends up laughing too.

It stands to reason, Sol thinks as they lapse back into quiet, eyes on the lights dancing over the horizon, that he _should_ square things for Tommy, once they’re through the passage. A welcome to a new world, and all that.

He’d do the same for any of his men, wouldn’t he? Besides, Armitage, with his lovely curls and bright eyes, his shy smile, would turn any lass’ head in a heartbeat. Just needs instruction, is all, and Sol can provide that, easy. School him in how to please a woman, what to say. Hand on his back, just to help him through. There’s none that’d think anything of it.

Warm to the idea, now, Sol slings an arm round Tommy when they head back below. “Stick with me, eh, Tommy? Have all them island girls eating out your hand, we will.”

“You — you reckon?” Tommy asks, turning towards him – Sol gets a faceful of curls, but he doesn’t mind that any. Tommy smells nice and all, soap and winter air, and fits just so under his arm. He catches the lad stifling a yawn. Ought to let him go on back to his berth, get some proper shut eye.

“More’n reckon,” he says confidingly, “Don’t go looking so worried. Shan’t let ‘em take chunks out of you.” Not on his watch.

“Promise?” Tommy says twisting away to look up at him. Could drown in those eyes, Sol thinks, and has to step away. Tommy’s a friend – relies on him, more important, _trusts_ him. Sol won’t give him a reason not to, not when he likes the lad so well.

Too well, perhaps.

“Cross my heart,” Sol tells him, and gives him a shove in the direction of his berth. “Now, to bed with you, Mr Armitage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Mivarts was a Mayfair hotel dating back to 1812, which would eventually become Claridges.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Getting up, that’s the next thing – was a bad idea sitting in the first place, if he’d kept his work up he could’ve muscled through it, maybe. But he won’t have Tozer think him weak._   
>  _Billy throws a scowl at Tozer’s back as the Sergeant heads to the slop room. “Ever ask him what his last slave died of?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy almost end of the year, everyone, have another 4k of Profound Ridiculousness and an updated chapter count (!) because i have no self control

He’s having one of his dizzy spells. He can always tell when they’re coming on, when he wakes with a slight buzz in the vicinity of his dumb ear. It’s not a sound, small chance of that, so much as a sensation, an itch in a phantom limb. _Get up_ , his father tells him, _you’re not fooling me, boy._

“Tommy.” Billy puts his cold fingers on the side of his neck.

“M’fine,” he murmurs. He’s not, in fact – he’s laid down flat on the bench in the mess, ostensibly to listen to Harry's reading, but in truth to keep himself as steady as he can until the fit passes. If he can just -

“ _Of his bones are coral made – Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade – But doth suffer a sea-change_ – don’t fuss him, Billy.” Harry will be looking at both of them over the top of the book, round eyes sharp with amusement.

“Sorry,” Tommy says, stretching his face into a grin. No point in complaining, Billy will only fuss more, and Peglar will try and make him go to sickbay, which he doesn’t much fancy — he’s spent enough time there this past week, trying to coax ginger tea down Torrington’s protesting throat while Doctor MacDonald mixes drops and powders to ease the stoker’s laboured breathing and slow, chafing cough. Jack’s not kept anything down these three days, and an attack of bile this morning had Peddie and MacDonald huddled together in the gun-room over breakfast, trying to plot out some course of treatment to reverse whatever it is that’s happening.

“Keep winding, then, will you.” Billy says, and Tommy cracks his eyes fully open, looking down to the skein of wool in his hands, which he’s let go unforgivably loose. It’s for mending Lieutenant Little’s scarf, a fine merino from the first officer’s personal stores, softer than anything Tommy’s ever handled.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, closing his eyes again and taking up the slack. It’s easier in the dark, without the shifts and shakes in his vision the dizziness brings on, the lamplight streaking yellow against his eyes. Harry picks the story back up – its a play, Tommy remembers, an old one, about a shipwreck, but they’re at anchor now, so it can’t be called bad luck. Harry gets them from old John Bridgens on Erebus, and Tommy thinks they pass notes pressed into the pages as well, back and forth like sweethearts. Billy says that on _Wanderer_ , Peglar would write long letters in his odd untidy hand, fold them away and keep them in his sea chest, guarding it like a Rottweiler and never telling him who they were for.

He’s working this over in his mind, whether Billy’s making it up or not, because surely Bridgens is nearly twice Harry’s age, when something hits him in the leg. Thinking its Billy again, he rolls his foot outwards, only for it to be caught and put back on the bench with much more strength than Gibson is capable of.

“Alright, Tommy?” Solomon asks.

He regrets sitting up as soon as he does it, the room spinning round him and his head buzzing. He makes a muffled sound of affirmation, blinking up at Tozer, who’s still in his outdoor slops, his cheeks glowing from the cold. Even with the dizziness, the broad, muscular strength of Tozer, his very nearness, can’t fail to make Tommy’s stomach flutter. “Erebus?” Tommy manages to say, because that’s where Tozer and Hammond have been, with the Captain and Lieutenant Irving.

“They’ve a man ill, same as us. Hartnell, but I didn’t think to ask which one. Johnny’ll know, was him spoke to Will Braine about it,” Tozer says, looking thoughtful. “Quiet otherwise. Couldn’t stand us a cuppa, could you?”

Tommy nods, or tries to. Getting up, that’s the next thing – was a bad idea sitting in the first place, if he’d kept his work up he could’ve muscled through it, maybe. But he won’t have Tozer think him weak.

Billy throws a scowl at Tozer’s back as the Sergeant heads to the slop room. “Ever ask him what his last slave died of?”

“I don’t mind it,” Tommy tells him, and gets a sharp look for his trouble. Billy’s good at those. He ignores it, hooks the wool, neat again, against the edge of the table, and takes a few, tentative steps towards the galley. Gets bumped hello by Hammond on the way, and nearly stumbles, but once he’s by the furnace it’s alright, he can make himself still and quiet while he waits for the water to boil.

He’s had it worse than this – his first voyage, before he got his sea-legs, he thought he was well about to die from it, the rocking and spinning, before the boatswain, a tall bear of a man with rough grey whiskers, plonked him on a stool on deck and had him fix his eyes at the horizon ‘til the sun set, and only let him get up once he could walk a steady line without stopping. Tommy still remembers his powerful arms and the growl in his voice, and his kind green eyes. How he would've done about anything, to please him. He'd gone back below that night not just with a steadier step but with the painful ache of knowing what it was to want a man, the way you were supposed to hanker for a woman, and that he'd no way back from it.

With the pitch black that has swallowed them now, though, there’s nothing for him to stare at except the steam from the kettle.

They’ve long run out of milk, which Tommy’s grateful for, because it saves him having to remember who takes what in the gun-room – not that the marines mind much. “Anything hot’ll do,” Tozer had said to him, winking, when they’d come in from a game of kickabout on the ice, back when they’d first pitched up at Beechey, still light enough up top for such diversions. 

The whistle of the kettle pierces Tommy’s head like a surgeon’s scalpel, and he earns himself a dubious glance from Mr Diggle when he fumbles to fill the black iron pot with its heap of second stew leaves. He’s good at his job, usually, is the thing.

It isn’t complicated, stewardship. Your officers rely on you, and if you do it well they’ve no idea that they do. There’s little space to be uncomfortable about it. Less so with the marines – how, when they take him into their confidence, make space at the table for him, tease and joke and share smokes with him, is he to feel himself in his proper place? Small wonder Jopson doesn’t like him doing it, mindful as he is of the natural order of things.

He’s never been brave, not really, but for these men in their fine red coats, who’ve seen and done things he’ll never, for their Sergeant with his slow smile and steady hands, darling of Tommy’s heart – for them he thinks he could be. Even if its only a pot of tea when his head’s spinning – let him do it, and do it well.

It’s that little bit of pride, and a little more stubbornness, that carries him through it and finds him squashed back against the bulkhead, cups passed round and thanks given. Harry's started up reading again, and he leans his head back to listen. Hopes this Miranda girl and her fellow make out alright, that its not one of them where everyone’s dead by the end.

The bell rings for the watch change, and Daly’s hand presses his shoulder, rough, familiar. “Comin’ up?” He’s serious – Tommy’s been on watch with one or other of the redcoats more than once now, though he’s not supposed to be doing that either. Most of the men, he knows, would give their eye-teeth to be in his shoes of a night, no need to mind the bells or Mr Lane with his lists, but he’s never been of a mind to say no.

Now though, with the risk he’ll make even more of a fool of himself? “I’m for my bed, I think.” He could plead a headache, but that’d be too close to the truth. “M’dog tired.”

“S’ this?” Tozer leans over the table.

“Tommy reckons he needs his sleep, bless him.” Daly says, pulling on Tommy’s good ear. “You sure, now?”

“Don’t fancy keeling over the gunwale, thanking you,” he says, and that makes Solomon laugh as well, which is worth it.

“Delicate flower, ain’t you Tommy?” Tozer says, levelling a long look at him over the edge of his mug. He’s grinning, his eyes dancing over Tommy’s frame. He does feel delicate then, small and breakable under Tozer’s heavy gaze, and if he'd been dizzy before, its nothing to this. He’s only making fun, same as when he called him _pretty_ , but Tommy feels his breathing quicken even as the others laugh.

Tommy breaks his eyes from Tozer’s. Feels as though he might fall if he stands up, right into Tozer’s legs, knowing his luck. He’ll have to risk it. Get him out the way of what he can’t have, at the very least.

“Not half. Sorry, lads,” he says, looking towards the galley, where Billy is glaring daggers at him for all the helping he’s not doing with the dishes, “that's me in for it.”

~

It’s not that he’s _watching_ , exactly, but its his job, isn’t it, to keep his ear out. Not that he or anyone else lingering in the mess can help hearing, the thud and clatter and frankly impressive string of curses Billy Gibson lets off – Sol wouldn’t have thought he had it in him, that one.

With the second dogwatch gone up, Sol pushes his way easily through the remaining men to take a view of the carnage – Gibson, empty basin clasped to one hip, shouting the odds at Genge, who is trying frantically to persuade a soaked and excited Neptune back towards the gangway into officer’s country. The dog isn’t having any of it, look of things.

“You were _supposed_ to be watching him,” Gibson is saying.

Genge makes a face, as well as he’s able when contending with several stone of wriggling Newfoundland. “Well, what was I gonna say, sorry Lieutenant, that’s ever such an interesting story about your cousin’s violin, but I must go and make sure Billy Long-shanks doesn’t scald poor Tommy half to death tripping over his own feet?”

“Oh, go to hell, Ned, you -”

“Enough,” Sol raises his voice only slightly, but its enough for Gibson to shoot him a look of outrage, and for Genge to almost lose his grip on the dog. He doesn’t have command over either of the subordinate officers stewards, technically speaking, but its not them he’s worried over, because between the pair of them, Tommy Armitage is pulling himself up off the deck, looking as though he’s just been ducked in a millpond. His black curls are flattened to his head, and there’s water dripping off the end of his nose.

“Alright, Tommy?” Sol asks.

“Shiny, me,” Armitage says grimly, shaking the sleeve of his jacket, which seems just as waterlogged as the rest of him. He puts a hand to his head, looking more than a little hard done by, and Sol reaches out to steady him. Tommy’s a tough little thing, but if he’s taken a knock, he might need seeing to.

“M’sorry, Tommy,” Genge mutters, getting hold of Neptune by the haunches and dragging the beast bodily back the way he came. The dog gives an aggrieved whimper, seeming to sense he’s in disgrace.

“S’alright,” Tommy says, “here, Billy, let me -”

“You’ll catch a chill, go to bed.” Gibson manages to make it sound like a scolding. Sol snorts, but he’s glad that Tommy seems to be heeding the other steward – wouldn’t like to have to haul him off to his berth the same way Genge is doing to Neptune.

Leaving Gibson to mop up, Sol shifts so Tommy can get past, then follows him down the passage to the stewards’ berths.

“Didn’t burn you any, did it?”

“Nah,” Armitage says from behind the curtain. Sol can hear him hissing as he peels out of his clothes, though, and he doesn’t feel much guilt about twitching the fabric back to check he’s telling the truth.

There’s a pink patch spread over Armitage’s chest and shoulder, Sol can see through his open shirt, but it doesn’t seem like to blister. Could easily be nowt but a flush, if Armitage’s cheeks weren’t already showing the reddish-white colour he normally turns when flustered. He’s very lean, without the padding of his broadcloth, collarbone showing sharp through his skin. Water beads from his curls and falls steadily onto the slope of his shoulder, and Sol almost reaches out to catch the drops with his fingertip. Quickly thinks better of it.

Armitage makes a face, a bit pained, and Sol wonders if he hit his head on the way down. He asks, and Tommy winces. “What?” Sol prompts.

“I just...y’know me ear’s bad? Gets thick in me head sometimes is all, throws me off balance,” Tommy’s speaking more to the boards between his boots than Sol, but he takes Tommy’s meaning well enough.

He leans up against the doorway to Tommy’s berth. “Wish you’d said. If you were poorly. Earlier, I was only teasing -”

That makes Tommy look up alright, almost stricken. “Sol, I -”

He shakes his head. They understand each other, don’t they? “You’re alright. Need a fresh shirt?”

“In the laundry,” Armitage says, spinning a bit on the spot. Finds what he’s looking for, a towel, and drags it over his curls. “See if I can borrow one from someone, Ned maybe, he _was_ supposed to be on dog duty, but he’s been in a pet all day about it being his little lad’s birthday, so Billy shouldn’t – what?”

“Genge has a kid?” Sol asks before he can remind himself not to.

“Yeah,” Tommy says, pausing in his attempts to wring the dishwater out of his hair. 

“And he signed on for this?” It’s none of his business what bloody Ned Genge does, he’s well aware of this, but he can’t help but think of Hedges, counting the days and minutes since he last saw his Eliza, of the far off look Bill sometimes gets worrying over Janie and the kids. None of his men, not a one, had asked for this lark – they’d signed on as marines, fair enough, clear eyed – but not to be packed off to the arse end of the earth for years on end. Nothing so much as a letter.

“Double pay, ain’t it?” Tommy says, in a thinking sort of way.

“For you,” Sol can’t help but bite out, and Tommy lowers the cloth altogether, damp lashes fluttering against his cheek. “Look, forget it, d’you -”

“Do you?” he asks, and its Sol who blinks now, confused. “Have children?” He says it like its only just occurred to him, and that’s the only reason Sol doesn’t tell him to mind his own.

“No. S’not the point.”

“I know,” Tommy says, just like that, like he understands, somehow, and he can’t, can he, yet there’s something in Sol that doesn’t mind it, that would bristle at anyone else that just falls, soft and pliable, in front of this skinny kid, and asks to be forgiven, for what he doesn’t even _know_ _._ “I just wondered, is all.”

“I’ll find you a shirt,” Sol tells him, because he’s hot behind the eyes and raging with it, at himself more than anything. He passes Hammond and grunts at him to go lend his spare shirt to Tommy, and sits down on his sea chest in the mess. One of the ship’s cats is lurking under the table, and winds its way round his legs. Its a sooty brown colour, but the eyes are familiar, dark green and steady, and Sol gives it a quick scratch, for old time’s sake.

_Pipkin leapt at Caroline’s skirts as soon as they were in the door, yowling as though he’d been left a year and a day rather than a few hours. She bundled the cat into her arms, cooing apologies and ruffling the tom’s ragged ears._

“ _You love that blasted creature more than you do me,” Sol grumbled, no heat behind it, as he sat to take his boots off._

_Caro laughed, kissing the cat’s mottled fur before relinquishing it, upon which it made a beeline for Solomon’s lap, standing on his thighs and pressing its paws, claws and all, into his skin, in slow deliberate dabs he supposed might pass for affection._

“ _My poor puss,” Caro said gently. She came to stand behind him, her nails raking through the underside of Sol’s hair, just as she would scratch Pipkin. He sighed, pressing up to the touch, the cat settling against his knee. “How does it feel to be so neglected, hmm?”_

“ _Terrible.” He leant his head back_ _into_ _her, a lazy contentment running all through him._

There’s a slight noise, and he looks up to see Tommy, in what must be Hammond’s shirt and his own dark blue jumper, standing in front of him, hair still damp. “I shouldn’t have said nothing. I din’t know,” he says, halting, docklands thick in his voice like it always is when he’s thinking hard on what he’s saying, “If you were even married.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Sol says, gesturing to make him sit down, stop hopping from foot to foot like a nervous hen. “I was. She...she passed. Year ago.” The words drop like stones, and he meets Tommy’s eyes, waiting for the _I’m sorry_ , the _condolences_ , the pity that always feels far too much like blame.

“What was she like?” Of course. Tommy Armitage lives to bloody confound him.

“Funny.” It’s not what he ought to say, but its the first thing he thinks of, her sweet smile and throaty laugh. “She was...well, she was a wicked gossip. Good cook. Wouldn’t take no for anything. Her sister, Meg, she was the pretty one, or that’s what their mam always said, but I...was only ever Caro I saw, y’know?”

There’s a lot else he could say, that he feels Tommy, of anyone, would understand. How she’d worn her dark hair in a plait to bed, winding it up in the lamplight and hooking it over her shoulder. That she kissed with her teeth, and loved when he took her from behind. The way she’d been when her belly swelled with child, her small neat hands pressed close to track its movements. Tired, so tired, thinner than ever, but happy, still. _It’ll be a boy,_ she told him, certain as always, and let him bend to kiss between her fingers, all that warm, pulled-tight skin.

Tommy hasn’t said anything, just presses his arm briefly into Sol’s. Sol jostles him back – they’re good mates, the two of them, aren’t they? He should probably stay silent, considering, but he says it anyway. “Was on account of me she died.”

“Makes you say that?” Tommy says, startlingly quick, like he doesn't believe it. Sol shrugs.

“It was. Doctor told us, she shouldn’t have a child. She weren’t strong. Thought I knew better, didn’t I?”

“And she didn’t think anything, then?” Tommy says, frowning, “I – Any woman of yours would want...well, what do I know about it, but from what you said, I think she wouldn’t like you talking so.”

 _Smart fish you’ve caught, Solly._ He can hear her laughing, even now. _Better hold on to him._ Oh, she’d make a proper pet of Tommy, he can just imagine now. Between Armitage and the bloody cat, he’d not get a look in. If Sol were to bring him back home on leave, there’d be a place at the table for him without a single word spoken. Sends a queer ache through him, the thought of the three of them together.

He looks at Tommy, who’s chewing on his lip. Rolls his hand against his knee, because wouldn’t it be easy, to reach out and catch hold of his jaw, press his fingers into that soft, giving mouth – say _leave it, now, that’s for me._

Christ, what’s the _matter_ with him lately, going on such?

“Happen you’re right.” Who else is there to carry it, though, with her laid in the ground? Sweet as Tommy is, he’s so young still. Sol won’t take that innocence from him, not if he can help it. “Here,” he says, grabbing Tommy’s arm as he gets up to go. “You do me good, Tommy Armitage, you know that?”

“Yeah?” Tommy says softly, only half a question, his blue eyes blown wide in the half dark.

Sol gives him a tip of the head that says, _you know you do, so don’t try it._ He lets the lad go, drains the last of his grog from his flask, lets the warmth spread through him. It’s on no account of Tommy’s answering smile, that way.

~

Lady Jane’s plum pudding, of all the gifts Sir John’s wife has given them, is the best received by _Terror’s_ crew – they’ve not had much to do with the monkey on Erebus, and Neptune, though a sweet sort of dog when he’s not charging through the galley knocking everyone sideways, does tend to shed everywhere.

Tommy plans on making his own helping last, so he takes a few bites only, tucking the rest away in a napkin. It’ll keep, amount of port that’s gone into it. That’s saying nothing of the amount that’s gone into the crew, rum and whatever else they can get their hands on.

“That’s never what I think it is,” Wilkes says, shiny eyed, when Tommy comes back from the gun-room, prize in hand. He suffers to have the whiskey grabbed away from him and passed round the marines, until it reaches Tozer, who looks at him sternly – he’s a little drunk, just like the rest of them, but sharp eyed as ever.

“Didn’t pilfer this, did you, Tommy?” He sounds half worried the answer might be yes.

Tommy shakes his head. “Not on your life. Mr Blanky said as I could have it.” Leaving aside the fact that Blanky had been three sheets to the wind by the end of the officers’ dinner, and won’t remember a moment of it in the morning, let alone what he might or might not have given Tommy leave to liberate from the pantry.

"What'd you have to do for it, then?" Daly asks, hooking an eyebrow at Tommy. 

"Asked nicely, is all," Tommy says tartly, and accepts the whiskey back, takes a cautious swig. 

By the time the bottle’s made a few rounds, they’re all as red as their coats, and Tommy feels he must not be all that better. He’s no great liking for whiskey, one of the few points he and Tom Jopson are of a mind on, but its not too bad when you’ve others to drink it with. Especially when it prompts Hammond to climb onto the sail-chest and drag Daly and a glowering Corporal Hedges after him, and the three of them start hooting out a bawdy song about punch ladles or some such, made a great deal more entertaining when they start disagreeing on the lyrics.

“Here, Tommy.” Tozer’s voice is soft in his good ear, and he almost jumps. “C’mere,” he continues, gesturing off through the throng of A.Bs.

“What for?” Tommy asks – as though he’s going to say _no_.

“C’mere,” Sol repeats, and doesn’t pause to give him much choice in the matter, pulling him under his arm like he does sometimes and over to the edge of the mess, sitting the two of them down on the deck by the bulkhead, where its quiet. “Shut your eyes – shut ‘em.”

Tommy does as he’s told, screwing his eyes shut, and hears the faint thunk of Tozer’s sea-chest lid opening and closing. He waits, doesn’t peek, and only opens them again when Tozer nudges him with a knee. He’s holding something, pale in the gloom.

“Here. S’for you.” It’s the polar cub’s pelt. Sol lays it across his knee like a mantle, the thick white fur heavy and warm.

Tommy frowns. “ _Thank you_ , but I’ve not – I’ve nothing for you. Save that, I mean,” he gestures to the whiskey bottle.

“Ah, hush up. It’s yours anyway. Your shot.” Sol leans easily against him, and Tommy thinks of all the things he could give him, would give him, if only he had the chance. He could press forward and put his lips to Solomon’s own, trace out the shape of his lips and learn what makes him groan and shake. Could get on his knees, _would_ , here and now before whoever wanted to watch, and show him, show him…

It’d likely get him a smack, if he tried – or worse, the slim chance that Sol would be _kind_ , because he is, he’s a good bloke, and he might pat Tommy’s shoulder and tell him not to worry, that they’ll not speak of it again, these things happen. Make a joke of it, even. A distance would grow between them, and he’d have none to blame but himself. _Christ_ , Tommy thinks, he’d rather be dragged before command, lashed and disrated, than face that.

He strokes a hand down the bear’s pelt, finds its easier to smile than it really ought to be. “Reckon I could get a set of mittens out of it,” he tells Sol, “keep you warm up on deck.” He’d like that, he thinks, to have something to give back to Solomon, to stitch and mend for him like a proper sweetheart would. Sol deserves that much. He can’t be _her_ , of course, the woman he lost, but he could be something. A comfort to him, even. 

“Mind if I smoke?” Tozer asks – its warm in their little corner, and it seems neither of them quite wants to chance getting up just yet.

Tommy shakes his head mutely, that’s the least he’d mind. The alcove fills with the sweet smell of Tozer’s tobacco, and the leather and sweat scent of his skin, and Tommy, bleary eyed from drink and the warmth in his blood that comes from Tozer’s proximity, feels a softness settle over him. He could stay like this, he thinks, for quite a good while.

Tozer’s pressed close to Tommy’s side. He touches the bear’s pelt gently with his free hand, a light press on Tommy’s leg as he ruffles the fur. “Could put it on your berth. Bet none of the other lads have 'owt like it,” Sol offers. He likes to talk when he’s drunk, then – lots of men do, Tommy knows.

He’s already halfway through drawing out the pattern for a pair of mittens in his mind, sizing it against Tozer’s big hands, the contours of which he knows almost as well as his own by now, from swapping guns and passing drinks, from his own looking and watching that he really shouldn’t be letting himself get away with. He’ll need a strong needle, might have to borrow one from Mr Murray over on Erebus, but the bear pelt is supple and should take a linen thread easily enough.

“Tommy, what d’you think -” Tozer begins, only to be cut off by the sound of Dr MacDonald shouting down from sickbay, Tommy’s own name.

“Blimey,” he mutters, going to get up. He can hear MacDonald talking to Mr Lane, asking if he’s seen Tommy anywhere, but Lane’s reply is lost under the noise of the men in the fo'c'sle. Peering round Tozer’s bulk, Tommy can see the doctor’s apron is a mess of blood and other things better not thought of. He tries to rise, only for Solomon to pull him back.

“Here,” Sol shifts round to crouch in front of him, leans forward, his hands planting firmly on Tommy’s outstretched legs, grip strong and warm through his trousers. He’s finished the whiskey, and it smells sweet on his breath. Tommy swallows, tries to keep his breathing steady. He ought to be used to Tozer touching him by now. “You’re a good lad, ain’t you, Tommy? You don’t let them officers muck about with you any?”

“No,” Tommy says haltingly, thinking that Tozer surely can’t mean what he’s implying. Or if he does, it must be the drink. “Course not.”

“That’s my boy,” Tozer rumbles, patting Tommy roughly on the cheek, and its _definitely_ the drink, Tommy tells himself. “G’on then.”

Tommy does as he’s bid. He thinks if he left it a second longer he’d lose all sense, crawl into Solomon’s lap and stay there, because the only one he wants to muck about with is him. Surely he must know that, that Tommy would never look at any other but him. Even if he doesn’t know what Tommy is, _inverted_ , that small and sharply pointed word, Tozer must have an idea of how much his friendship is to Tommy.

He tries to clear the thought from his mind as he fights his way through the mess, littered with A.Bs only just reacting to the commotion. “Doctor MacDonald?”

“Ah, thank the Lord, Mr Armitage. Fetch Doctor Peddie down from the deck at once, and set Mr Diggle to boiling some water.”

“Is it Jack, sir? Torrington?” Tommy can’t help but ask – he knows the stoker hasn’t gotten any better, his cough hard in his thin chest, and though there’s plenty of men in and out of sickbay as the weather turns colder, its Torrington’s hammock that has been brought in from the fo'c'sle. Johnson and Smith, the other two stokers, are right worried about him, Tommy knows that much.

MacDonald presses his lips together, giving the briefest nod. Tommy nods in return, recognising he’ll get no more, and sets off about his duty. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the play peglar is reading from is The Tempest, and the song the marines sing is actually called Fathom The Bowl, (lyrics vary depending on which country you're singing it in, I've heard both England and Ireland referenced) and you can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTj-8waBk7E).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Whether or not Tommy knows what he’s doing is besides the point. He’s young, too young, and its Sol’s responsibility not to lead him down the garden path._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blows a kiss to the sky* for john torrington (happy deathday, mate, sorry about...all of this)

You can’t, Sol reckons, help what you dream.

So if, in his dreams the past few nights, Tommy’s sweet to him, that’s not for him to be concerned about. And he’s not – not concerned, not with the dreams at least.

There its safe to entertain the memory of Tommy in his skivvies, stripped of his stewards’ blues – just a shirt and Sol’s hands under it. Hold him up, hold him down. He’d be sweet alright, if you worked him over proper. Would let Sol pull him close, bare his neck and spread his thighs.

Only trouble is, the dreams start to spill over to his waking hours. He imagines hot, flushed skin, being touched gently, and touching in turn. Likely that’s against the articles just the same, wanting to handle Tommy such, though they don’t mention it exactly. Might even be considered a favour on Sol’s part, to tease out all that shyness into something rare and shining, under him.

It’s there he needs to draw the line. Articles are clear enough on that, what he can and can’t do with Tommy’s pretty arse. Scripture too, he supposes, though the specifics of all that are a bit beyond him. He’s not been used to this, denying himself something fiercely wanted – if this can even be called a want, cutting him off at the knees as it does.

Being told _no, you can’t have that,_ that’s one thing, all well and good if it makes sense. But the more he thinks on it, Sol begins to wonder if it does.

Tommy slips on the ice on deck one night after the watch. Would’ve tumbled straight over if Sol hadn’t been there to catch him. He grabs him sharp by the wrist and hauls him upright, makes some joke about looking where he’s putting his feet. They’re that close he can feel the warmth of Tommy’s cheeks when he blushes.

The next day, Tommy’s scrubbing dishes in the galley when Solomon comes by with a message for Diggle, sleeves pushed up to his elbow. He looks up at Sol and grins, nods a greeting before turning back to his work. Sol can’t look away, though, because there on Armitage’s pale forearm is the imprint of his own hand, blue fingermark bruises standing out like watercolours.

The sight of it heats his blood, though with nothing like guilt. Just the opposite – it satisfies an ache in him he hadn’t even thought of, a sharp ring of triumph he’s only ever felt standing, bloodied and exhausted, in the aftermath of a good fight or, perhaps, at the altar when the church doors opened.

If he can’t kiss Tommy as he wants (and he _had_ wanted to, hadn’t he, once the whiskey was in him, come within a hair’s breadth of asking for it, _what d’you think,_ _pet,_ _give us one –_ _its Christmas, ain’t it?,_ and wouldn’t he just have opened that sweet mouth of his and let Sol right in, there with no-one at all to see them), he can have this, the warm sight of those bruises, _his_ bruises, and Tommy flaunting them in front of the whole ship.

That’s it, though. Whether or not Tommy knows what he’s doing is besides the point. He’s young, too young, and its Sol’s responsibility not to lead him down the garden path. He can take care of his own self well enough without bothering Tommy – you learn, don’t you, on board ship?

It’s simple, or ought to be. Toss yourself off, clear it all out and move on. But when he takes himself in hand in the dead of night, silent and practiced under the blanket, its to thoughts of dark curls and sharp shoulders, to the imagined sight of Tommy Armitage on his knees or his back, looking up at Sol, big blue eyes wet and wanting. Of shouldering between Tommy’s thighs and burying his face in the flat of his stomach, breathing in soap and tallow, and his own scent left on the lad’s skin.

Not as though he can send Tommy off, is it? Even if he wanted that (he doesn’t), the others like the lad far too well to let Sol get away with such a thing, Sergeant or not.

“Gently, now,” Tommy is telling Hammond, who he’s somehow roped into helping him with peeling some of their dwindling stock of potatoes – Daly’s hanging about too, pointedly _not_ doing anything useful, unless you count feeding peelings to that bloody dog, who’s a sixth sense for both food scraps and a soft touch. “Like this.” Tommy takes the flat of his knife and folds it round the one in his hand, smoothing the edge – just as the officers like, Sol suspects.

Dinner for the new year, it’ll be. Roast them up in bear fat, leave a smear of oil on the fine china for Tommy and the other stewards to scrub away. They say the liver’s dangerous to eat, but Diggle’s used every other scrap of meat from the bear cub – tastes like nothing so much as old venison, to Sol’s view – and only bones for broth remain alongside the jars of yellow grease.

“Smell like a woodhouse, once its done,” Tommy jokes, pushing his curls off his face. Getting long, they are, and wild with it. Those men that’ve missed their birthdays can line up to get cropped before the year turns, but the idea of someone taking scissors to Tommy’s hair...for once, Sol hopes the gun-room lot keep Armitage busy enough tonight that he’s no time for the barber.

Almost as though he’s wished it on himself by entertaining the thought, Mr MacBean catches Tommy’s eye from halfway across the fo'c'sle, and just like that the lad is up and off. Neptune takes the opportunity to clamber halfway over Daly’s lap and stick his nose into the bag of potato scraps, but Sol’s attention is fixed on Armitage – and on the second master's hand pressing carelessly into the lad’s jacket, thumb in the crook of his elbow. He’s a tall bloke, fairly towers over Tommy, who’s nodding earnestly in response to whatever MacBean is saying.

And well, perhaps that’s a touch concerning, the sudden and violent urge to knock MacBean into the nearest ice-hole.

“Dunno how Tommy sticks this,” Hammond is saying, pushing at Neptune with one arm and shielding the peeled spuds with the other. “Women’s work, isn’t it? When all’s said and done.”

“We’ll get you a nice apron, Johnny, that’ll fix you,” Sol tells him, tearing his eyes away from Tommy. Enough of this.

“Aye, bet some of them lot don’t mind it – our Tommy all done up in frills and ribbons. He’s pretty enough to make ye – _ow_ , mother of -” Daly cuts off sharply. Someone may have kicked him – Sol really couldn’t say, with the dog underfoot.

“That’s enough out of you and all,” Sol tells him.

“Yessir,” Daly mutters, eyes watering. Not before time too, because MacBean’s finally let go of Tommy – did he feel it, Sol wonders, the officer's hand pressing down on the marks Solomon gave him, the sting of pain and belonging as sharp as what’s sitting in Sol’s chest? Tommy gives no sign of it either way, clambering back over to sit next to Hammond and taking his knife out again.

Sol manages about half a minute. “What’d MacBean want, then?” he asks, words thick in his mouth.

“Wha – oh,” Tommy looks up. Keeps peeling. Looks round, as though he’s checking they’ll not be overheard, then smiles, wide like the sun. _Christ_. “Mr Helpman’s birthday – s’next week. Diggle’s making a pudding with raisins – we’ve some suet leftover – and I’m to bring it out at the end of the meal. A surprise, like.”

“Sneak us some, won’t you, Tommy?” Daly, grinning again, nudges Armitage.

“With that lot?” Tommy says, shaking his head. “Be lucky if there’s a crumb left. And keep it quiet, won’t you – I won’t half be in trouble if he finds out before the day.”

“Silent as the grave, we are,” Hammond promises, standing as the bell tolls. “Better than, if you _do_ see your way to giving us some pudding.”

“Not likely,” Tommy says, waving Johnny off and bending back to his work. Sol, who’s been too busy feeling a right and utter fool, finds himself caught up again in the dip of Tommy’s lashes against his face. He’d been sharp with Daly, and he’s right to, but in all honesty – even now, with his stained apronfront, the plain ties doubled over and pulled taut at the front, and a dog drooling onto his knee, Tommy’s about the loveliest thing he’s seen in an age.

“What’s not likely?” Wilkes, just in from first dogwatch, clambers next to Tommy into the spot Hammond has just vacated – spots Neptune on his way, and then ducks down to fuss the dog's ears.

“Tommy taking pity on us poor wretches and our empty stomachs. Heart of stone, this one.” Daly says, looking plaintively in Tommy’s direction.

“Care for your gut is more like it, Jim,” Heather says, taking the place next to Sol, who nods to Corporal Hedges, on his way up towards the top deck from sickbay – he’s a filthy cold, Will has, but Doctor Peddie has him breathing oil of camphor every hour, and Hedges insists he can take his normal watch duty, even with a nose redder than his jacket. Fine for now, but Sol intends to keep an eye – he’s not above swapping him out if he looks like getting worse. Weather’s bastard cold.

“I’d half think you’ve no love for your mates at all, Tommy, being so cruel,” Daly’s going on still.

“You can scoff one of these if you like,” Tommy says, proffering a raw potato.

“You see this, lads! Cruelty, is what I call it – depriving innocent men of their victuals.” Daly shakes his head.

“Yeah, Tommy – be a pal, think of Jimmy’s gullet.” Wilkes snorts, still letting the dog slobber over him. “Tell you though, I wouldn’t mind some if its going.” He winks at Tommy, who feints throwing the potato in his direction.

“Oi, now, Tommy likes me best, don’t you?” Daly scoffs, leaning imploringly into Tommy’s side. Perhaps its Daly should take the second dogwatch, Sol reflects. Or all of them. “Go on, Tommy, they’ll never notice if you -”

“If he what?” Quieter than a cat when he walks, that Jopson is. He’s all but hands on hips looking down at them, though any of Sol’s men, even Tommy, would likely outstrip him were they standing.

“Nowt for you to worry over, Mr Jopson,” Sol says, before Tommy can apologise or Daly can say something coarse.

Jopson gives him a look that says he doesn’t believe that for a second, then turns back to Tommy. “Right, well, they're nearly done with Billy if you want your turn on the stool, Tommy.” He pushes back a strand of his own hair, giving them a last cool look before turning to go. Daly gives a mock shiver, and for once Sol doesn’t blame him.

“In for a trim, Tommy?” Wilkes says, as Tommy stands, shifting the tin of potatoes onto his hip.

“Getting to it, ain’t it?” Tommy says ruefully, tugging at his curls. “See you later, lads.”

“And bring the dog!” Jopson calls over his shoulder. “Ned’s to take him up for his last run.”

Tommy looks between the sack of peelings and Neptune, clearly trying to weigh up which he’ll get in worse trouble for leaving.

“S’alright, Tommy. C’mon now, you.” Sol takes hold of Neptune’s collar and hustles him across the deck after Tommy. It’s a kindness, is all. If it means he can corner Tommy, private like, once he’s deposited the potatoes back in the galley, and Sol has shooed Neptune along to the ladderway, that’s nobody’s business, is it?

“Everything alright?” Tommy asks.

“Don’t,” Sol blunders the word out, but he means it, and Tommy looks at him with such earnest bloody attention he can’t regret saying so. “Your hair, its fine, you – don’t cut it.”

“Weren’t planning on letting them shave it down,” Tommy says, “but I’ll look a right plum, it gets much longer.”

“You’re fine,” Sol tells him. More than fine, if he’s to tell it true. “Just...be a shame to to let them cut it, yeah? All them curls. So promise me you won’t.”

“Never make a soldier looking like this,” Tommy jokes, ducking his head.

“Don’t be stupid,” Sol grabs his arm, presses, just a little. “You’re as good as any of my lads, and if the recruiting sergeant didn’t see it, well, man needs his eyes checked, never mind your ear.” He reaches, then, runs his thumb down the line of Tommy’s curls where they dip over his ruined ear. Just gently, mind. Tommy half smiles, but there’s something sad in his face, something Sol would give about anything to wipe away.

He wants Tommy to smile, he realises – wants him to take him serious, wants those stars in his eyes all to himself.

He might, he thinks, be just a little bit done for.

**~**

At a quarter past ten in the morning on the first day of 1846, John Torrington, eyes glassy, props his head up and asks for his Ma.

Tommy doesn’t have to look at Doctor MacDonald to know what this means. His dad, who fought at Vitoria, used to tell stories about men dying – said it was always the same. They either pissed themselves or begged for their mothers.

Jack doesn’t speak again. His mates are with him, at the end, and though MacDonald sends Tommy to ask the Lieutenants for permission to use something to ease him, make the going swift and gentle – the Captain being over on Erebus for something to do with the magnetics – Lieutenant Irving looks as though he might combust at the very idea, and that makes Little shake his head, stern faced.

Torrington passes a little before suppertime, and if its not gentle, its quiet at least, his heaving breaths rattling to a stop at last.

Tommy’s never seen a man die before. He’d been at sea when Dad passed, bad tooth gone septic, and it hadn’t seemed real, when he’d got the letter. His mum was dry-eyed by the time he made it back, and Tommy wondered if she’d cried at all, for fear of what to do now if nothing else.

On Terror, at least, nobody needs to worry what to do. The other stokers, Luke Smith and old Bill Johnson, comb Torrington’s hair and dress him neat, Smith’s spotted handkerchief tied to keep his jaw closed. They’ve no sailmaker, he was sent back with Mr Carr the armourer and one of Sol’s marines, Aitken, before they left Greenland. It falls to Tommy to sew the shroud, then, there being no-one else.

 _For dead men’s shoes_ , he can’t help but think of himself. It ought to bother him more, the gaps that others have left behind he finds himself pushed into, but he doesn’t like being maudlin, not when there’s worse things to fret over.

Corporal Hedges takes his head out from under the covering on the camphor bowl and comes to stand at Tommy’s shoulder, watches him stitch. “You’re not half bad,” he says, which Tommy takes as something like a compliment. It’s just practice. Besides, it’s only temporary, just until Mr Honey finishes the coffin. Jack will be laid to rest like a proper Englishman, command have promised that.

Tommy pockets the stiff sail-needle, after, because nobody else looks like dying, and he needs it for Sol’s mittens. Hedges goes out, and then comes back a minute later with Solomon and Jimmy Daly. “We’re to take him below.”

“What for?” Smith looks up sharply. Johnson is staring down at his own hands, and doesn’t move.

“Orders,” Sol says. “With me, Tommy.”

He goes. Once they’re out of earshot, and Jimmy and Will have lifted Torrington’s body, Sol tells him. “Erebus surgeons reckons John Hartnell might not last the week.”

They’re right, as it turns out. A few days later, word comes from Erebus in the shape of Corporal Patterson, and Torrington’s body is brought up from the Orlop. When they cut back the shroud, his eyes are half open, staring. He had blue eyes, Torrington, but they’re clouding over now, a mucky greenish grey. Johnson reaches down and gently closes them again, before Mr Honey brings the coffin round.

“It ain’t right,” Tommy hears him saying, as though Torrington can hear him. “Been coal-mucking me whole life. Ought’ve been me, Jack, not a strong lad like you.”

They bury the two of them, Hartnell and Torrington, side by side in the bare arctic ground. The marines have dug the graves, though they had to send Will Braine back to Erebus when he lost his grip on the pickaxe and nearly went toppling in himself. It’s right strange, doing all this in the dark. Furtive, almost, as though they’re at something they shouldn’t be, rather than a decent English burial as their shipmates deserve.

It seems the whole two ships have turned out, though. Sir John has ordered headstones cut, and he reads from the bible once the bodies are lowered in, or Tommy thinks he must. It’s pitch black this far from the ships, the lamps they’ve carried all the light there is to see by. Perhaps he has it memorised – seems like the sort of thing their Commander would do.

Hartnell’s brother stands at his grave long after most of the men have wound their way back towards the ships. Tommy, helping to carry the tools and such back to Terror, can’t help but look at him and feel a sting of pity. He’s no brothers or sisters of his own, born late to a mother who’d all but given up on the hope or chance of a child, but he thinks what losing someone so dear – his mum, or Solomon, even – might be like, and it turns him to shivering.

They’re sailors, though. Once back on board Terror, the men are granted double grog ration, and they drink, and sing the souls of the two men down, clutching fierce to their own lives and one another's. Sir John has said they’d have no more tragedies, that providence would not allow it. There’s been a warning, too, stern from Doctor Stanley and milder from MacDonald, that any man who suspects he might be ill is to report it, the sooner the better.

Tommy can’t stop thinking of Torrington’s half-open eyes. He goes to his cabin and takes out knife and needle, and starts to cut the bear hide down to size. _The mind can’t play silly beggars if its busy_ , Tom Jopson had said to him once, though Tommy can’t remember when or what for.

He’s sitting cross legged on the floor when Tozer comes to find him, pushing at his hair when it falls into his eyes. Sol groans when he sees what Tommy’s doing, long suffering, but when he turns his face away, there’s a smile there that Tommy can just see, as though he’s pleased in spite of himself.

“You’re never after making me them mittens,” Tozer says.

“Course,” Tommy says. “Here at Armitage’s gunshop and haberdashery, we pride ourselves on promises kept.” And wouldn’t his dad just turn over, seeing Tommy with a needle and thread in hand! Seeing him mooning over a Marine Sergeant, well – he reckons dad knew, or suspected, amount of knocks he gave Tommy for trailing after redcoats on shore, sneaking off to watch the parades when the ships came in.

 _So you want to make a lobster kettle of yourself, lad? That it?_ He’d said once, when he’d been on the drink. Tommy hadn’t known what he meant. He’d only been thirteen.

Tozer’s looking at him, bright eyed, tired seeming, and oh, Tommy knows it now. “Promised you wouldn’t let ‘em near your pretty hair,” he murmurs, steeping further into Tommy’s cabin. The curtain flutters shut behind him.

He wishes for a door, one he could shut at his leisure. Wishes he could crawl to Tozer and press his face to his powerful thighs, work his way up until he found his prick and mouth it through his trousers. He wishes he was brave, so he could speak to Tozer as he wants. Nobody has ever told him how. He’s done a bit of it a time or two, winding up by accident almost in alleyways and men’s conveniences, but those silent exchanges of hand and mouth in the dark seem far and away from the pounding in his chest when he looks at Sol.

He shakes his head, touching his hair, which is still overlong, if he’s honest. Ignores the _pretty_ , because he has to, if he doesn’t want to start thinking things he oughtn’t. “I didn’t. Trimmed it over the basin, is all. Jopson threatened to mop the floor with me, otherwise.”

“Fuck Jopson,” Tozer declares. He looks about the cabin, then sprawls down on the little remaining floorspace and holds his hand out to Tommy. “G’on, then.”

Tommy takes his meaning, and wraps the first cut of hide around Solomon’s hand. He’s a good eye, knew he’d have enough to work with, but the heat of Sol’s rough palm and broad fingers are impossible to refuse. He wishes he had pins strong enough for the fur, not only to make his job easier, but because he could hold onto Solomon longer, then, and nobody could say a word about it.

“You alright, lad?” Sol asks him, and its not his usual easy way of nudging words out of Tommy. His eyes, that warm brown Tommy likes better than any colour he’s seen, save maybe the red of his coat, are soft and serious. “You didn’t have to – see after Torrington, I mean.”

“I did,” Tommy tells him. “Same as you have to boss the lads about so they eat proper, and make sure Hedges sleeps the night with his cold, and no-one realises Hammond’s got that funny ankle. Nobody tells us. We know what we’ve to do.” He believes this, if he believes anything. It’s something he’s proud of, in a funny way.

Sol sighs, taking his hand back. “You’re a funny little thing sometimes, Tommy.” He says it so simply, without any laughter in his voice at all. “I don’t half like you, eh?”

“Course,” Tommy says, because he has to say _something_ , or he’ll lose command of himself and break the articles in act as well as thought for good and all. “Not half bad, yourself.”

“Cheeky baggage,” Tozer says, landing him a punch on the arm. It glances off, no real force behind it. Feels like a kiss besides. As close as he’s likely to get in any case. “You’ll be alright, won’t you?”

Tommy nods. “I’m well. I mean – I’ll _be_ well enough, tomorrow,” he promises, and can only hope it bears him out. He don’t need fussing over, he ought to say, but he’s soft for it all the same.

“You’d better. What’d I do without you?”

“Oh, perish the thought.” Tommy says, and leans to use the smouldering bowl of Sol’s pipe to light his cigarette. “Might have to make your own tea.”

~

Polar night or no polar night, he runs his men through their exercises and drills same as he did when the ship was in full sail. The lads moan a little, but they take to it willingly enough. They’re marines, after all – they’ve a certain pride to maintain if nothing else.

It’s steamy under the canvas, and worse in the fo'c'sle with the men crammed in for the night. Sol leaves the others stripping down and shoulders his way down the ladder to the orlop, where the air is cooler, two guns swung over each arm. There’s a lantern on in the armoury – Tommy waiting up for him, and isn’t that a thought?

“Almost done. Be out your way in a minute,” Tommy looks up and grins when he sees him – he’s doing inventory or something like, checking off shot and powder casks in his little notebook. Sol shakes his head.

“You’re alright. Why don’t you sit down?” He does so himself, guns on his knee, and watches Tommy work, tapping his pencil against the notebook. Quiet down here, just the two of them, and where the cold air might usually be unpleasant, he’s stirred enough from the exertion on deck that its welcome.

“I’m not the one’s been up there shouting the odds and thudding through the boards,” Tommy says. “Keeps me warm, standing.”

He jigs demonstratively, foot to foot. Sol can’t help it, smiles back at him – how can he not, when Tommy’s so glad to see him, even in this poky room full of metal and powder. As good as a home for the two of them, he thinks, casting his eye about, to avoid looking too long at Tommy as much as anything. Can’t lead anywhere sensible.

“You rush about enough. Make a marine of you yet,” Sol tells him.

Tommy laughs like he’s joking, and he is, half, but not the way Tommy thinks. Not at him – that, he never would.

He’s a slip of a thing, Armitage. Sol reckons he could easily lift him off his feet, were he to take that fancy. He used to do that with Caro, he remembers now, get hold of her and swing her into his lap for no better reason than he liked to have her there, and because he could.

Armitage is not his wife. Far from it. No, the gun-room steward belongs to half a dozen men, masters mates and surgeons and boatswains, all with a claim to him that Solomon can never have. All they have to do is click their fingers and Tommy will come scurrying. That won’t do at all, he can’t help but think, and the thought refuses to dismiss itself.

“C’mere, Tommy,” he says, putting the guns aside. “Reckon we’d soon whip you into shape.” He rests his hands on Armitage’s waist – there’s wiry muscle under his blues, right enough, but he’s slender, especially compared to Sol’s own well-maintained bulk.

“D’you?” Tommy’s voice is very soft.

“Aye. Drill you up and down the deck.” He finds his thumb drifting backwards and forth in the gap between Tommy’s waistcoat and braces, where the rough linen of his shirt shows through. “Keep my eye on you.”

“Solomon.” It’s the faintest whisper, almost hoarse, and Tommy licks his lips afterward, a deft flick of his tongue that cannot help but draw Solomon’s eye. Oh, but he’s too pretty by half, his Tommy.

If Tommy were a girl, a doxy in some Woolwich tavern, Sol would take right now to slide his hands down, give his lovely arse a right good squeeze. Make himself _very fucking clear,_ without a word being spoken, what he was about. Tommy'd feel it, right enough. Pull him down to straddle across one of Sol’s thighs, hold him there and kiss him just as long as he liked.

He should be angry, he knows, the things Tommy Armitage makes him think. Things he’s never before considered, in all his thirty-five years, of another man – well, save a few curious twitches in his youth, safely packed up and ignored in favour of what his first Sergeant used to call _suitable company_. But oh, there’s times when he half-wants to slap him, all for looking so godforsaken sweet. Watch a mark bloom on his pale cheek, and know he put it there, sure as the fading bruises on his arm.

“You’re good for it, ain’t you, Tommy?” The words drip honey soft off his tongue, and Armitage takes a shaking breath inwards. He’s not scared, Sol realises, not in the way you’d think. Trembling, though. “Here, s’alright, lad.”

“I would,” Tommy mutters, “I’d be good for you, I – _Sol_ …” His blue eyes are burning that bright, Sol thinks they could well blind him.

What’s a man supposed to say to that? “Was gonna ask you summat,” he murmurs, because there’s no way back now, is there? None that he can fathom. “Christmastime, when MacDonald called you away.”

Tommy frowns at him. “What?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I shan’t.” Tommy says, and god help him he presses closer, and if that’s not showing willing...

He swallows past the dryness in his throat. “C’mere, then,” he whispers, and takes hold of Tommy’s hand. “Give us a kiss.”

It’s startlingly, blazingly brief, when Tommy does as he’s asked. His mouth, just as soft and tender as it seems from a distance, grazes Solomon’s own – a click of teeth, both of them out of practice, and then its warm in the space between them. Tommy’s looking at him, lips parted, eyes soft. Sol’s weak, right enough, and he leans up to kiss Tommy again, harder, this time, and long enough to feel it.

Tommy makes a soft noise, hands fluttering like he doesn’t know what to do with them, and Sol shifts his legs further apart to pull him in deeper – the angle’s wrong, but he doesn’t care, its that good. He doesn’t want to stop kissing Tommy for anything. They could beat the door down, tell him they’d found the passage and he’d made colour sergeant, and he can’t imagine giving a damn.

Nobody could blame him, he thinks, wrapping one arm across Tommy’s back, the other sunk deep into his hair. How could he not want this, Tommy Armitage with his mouth open under Sol’s, his pink tongue darting against his lips, like he’s catching snowflakes again. He remembers then, that day on deck before the sun went down, Tommy with his head up and his pretty mouth, and its then he realises he’s hard, his cock twitching desperately in search of somewhere to spend itself, and if he’s not careful he’ll go off before time, and wouldn’t that just be the crown of it all? _Terribly sorry, sirs, you can’t hang me for sodomy, all I did was kiss him and that about took care of it._

“Alright, Tommy, alright, that’s enough,” he says. Pulls off, strokes Tommy’s hair. Shifts his thighs, in the hope it’ll take the edge off. It doesn’t. He looks, blearily, up at Tommy. “Eager, aren’t you? Could turn a bloke’s head - you wanna be careful.” He grins.

“Sol,” Tommy takes his hand, threads his fingers through Sol’s own. He looks stricken by something, but Sol can’t imagine what. “Don’t play with me. I can’t take that.”

“What d’you mean?” Sol asks. Tommy’s hand is hot in his, he doesn’t think he’s been this warm since they left England, but something’s wrong, the lad’s eyes are wet with more than want. What is it he’s missed?

“I’ll suck you off, if you like. You don’t have to...you can pretend I’m whoever you like. Or you can have me thighs, its good like that, I’ll keep quiet. Have me any way you like, or tell me to sling me hook. But I don’t think I can stand it if you laugh at me. Not when I…”

“When you what?” Sol asks, tugging at him when he sees he’s about to pull away. “Speak to me, Tommy, I don’t – fuck, what’ve you done to me?” Christ, he could shake him, so he could. Almost does, but once he’s got his hands on him, it turns swiftly into something else. They cling together like drowning men, touching skin wherever they can find it. In the circle of Sol’s arms, Tommy unbends a little, breathing out.

“What’ve _I_ done?” Tommy asks. “Oh, Sol.” He touches Sol’s hair. Feels nicer than it has any right to.

“I’m sorry,” Sol murmurs, “I shouldn’t have asked you. Kissed you. Weren’t fair of me. I’ll leave you be, I swear, just...Christ.”

“I know,” Tommy says, and he can feel him pulling away, getting ready to leave, to lock up what they’ve done and never speak of it again. Does he think Sol _wants_ him to, that he’d rather they’d never touched in the first place? _You can pretend I’m whoever you like_. Hang that, can Tommy not see himself? Know that he’s the world entire, to Sol’s mind at least? “I know, Solomon. It’s alright.”

It isn’t. But for now, he holds Tommy against him, and tries to convince himself its better they stopped. Safer, kinder, he’s too old and too rough and not half what Tommy deserves, he’d hurt him, most like, he’s never had a man before and likely he’d cock it right up.

That’s the trouble, though, ain't it? He can lie to himself well enough – but he’s never been much good at stopping a thing once he’s started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tozer.exe has encountered an error and needs to close


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re doing well, lad,” MacDonald is saying, Scots and reassuring._
> 
> _Tozer ignores this. “Look at me,” he orders, and Tommy, because he’s a coward, doesn’t. “Tommy.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy doodle, here we go.
> 
> now with a [bonus moodboard!](https://regularmongoose.tumblr.com/post/640493994110009344/a-mood-board-for-my-now-complete-terror-fic-my)

“Get out my fuckin’ way, Gibson.”

From the drawing in of Doctor MacDonald’s eyebrows, Tommy is left in no doubt of what he thinks of a such a disturbance to the usual calm of sickbay, but he says nothing, so Tommy keeps his own silence.

“I will not,” Billy hisses. He’s blocking the doorway with surprising efficiency for such a spindly bloke. “You don’t think you’ve done enough, Sergeant?”

 _Christ_. Billy means well, but Tommy still wishes he wouldn’t. It’s pure luck besides that Tommy’s left side on to the fo'c'sle and hears him at all, his chin tilted up to allow the doctor about his work, plying needle and thread through Tommy’s skin as efficiently as he himself would sew up an officer’s shirt.

“Watch yourself, lad,” Tozer is saying – if Tommy were to look properly, he’s sure he’s see the red flash of Tozer’s coat in the lamplight.

“And who’s to watch you?” Billy snorts. Whatever Tozer says in response Tommy can’t make out, but Billy's shoved aside a moment later, and Tozer looms up in the corner of his eye, stocky frame blocking out anything else. Tommy flinches, more from the embarrassment of being seen in such a state as from pain, and fights the urge to squeeze his eyes shut.

 _What’ve you done to me_ , Solomon had asked him, and Tommy had almost laughed. Rich, that was, for him to say that, when he’s been slowly carving Tommy’s heart from his chest since the first time he so much as glanced at him.

That’s unfair of him to think, he knows. Tozer never meant for this, he couldn’t have, it was Tommy’s to own, so what could he do but stop it? He’d have thought he’d be helpless to it, if Solomon wanted him, open clean for the taking, and he was, he _is_ , only -

Christ, he’d never want to be something that Sol _regrets_. He can’t meet the other man’s eyes now, for fear of seeing it, the shame of what he’d asked of Tommy, what Tommy would’ve let him have without a thought, only -

“You’re doing well, lad,” MacDonald is saying, Scots and reassuring.

Tozer ignores this. “Look at me,” he orders, and Tommy, because he’s a coward, doesn’t. “ _Tommy_.”

He lets his eyes flick up, then, just briefly. Finds Tozer, side on, and blinks guiltily away. “My own fault,” he grits out, only for MacDonald to hush him, because it pulls on the wound if he talks, makes it harder for him to stitch.

“We all felt the tilt, I’ll wager,” the doctor says, as though all this is entirely usual, “No knocks on deck, I hope, Sergeant?”

Tozer shakes his head, then makes an aborted movement in Tommy’s direction. Tommy wants to tell him it looks worse than it is, that its his own stupid fault for fumbling his grip on the razor – he’s shaved in sideways gales, for god’s sake, and worse, and a creak of ice has put him in this sorry state. He can’t though, and that’s for the best, likely.

“Christ, lad.” Tozer sits down heavily, and Tommy takes a second to be thankful that Doctor Peddie isn’t about to see such treatment of his desk. MacDonald, for his part, keeps stitching the wound on Tommy’s throat closed.

It hurts like the razor’s still in him, but Tommy’ll be damned if he shows it – especially with Solomon here, eyes hunting him whenever he chances to look up.

This is the closest they’ve been since...well, since the thing they’re both doing their level best to avoid speaking of. Tommy’s kept his distance mostly because he knows himself, knows his weaknesses, and he doesn’t want to have to look at Sol and see him look back as he had done down in the armoury. When Tommy had stammered out his wretched offer, all but begged for it, and Tozer only stared at him like he’s lost his mind for even saying the words.

It’s nothing he ought not to have expected. He’s had more, he knows, than is his rightful share. Tozer’s hands on his hips, drawing him in. The heat of his mouth against Tommy’s own, steady and sure as Sol always is. Funny, that – he don’t look it now.

Doctor MacDonald cuts off the thread and presses a square of dampened cloth to Tommy’s neck, daubing up the last of the blood. “Now, lad, I want you on light duties only the rest of the day, and no serving at table – no, I’ll make your apologies to the rest of the mess. You’ve lost a fair bit of blood – and I’m sure Sergeant Tozer and his lads can do well enough without you ‘til tomorrow.”

Tommy can hardly deny this – his collar is stained with it still, and he’s as shivery as he ever is when his ear’s bad, though he was hoping to blame that on the cold, sitting here in his shirt and trousers, the brazier not yet lit, because usually he’d be fetching the coal and instead he’s made a right mess of everything, not least himself.

“Aye,” Sol is saying, and he comes right up to Tommy, presses a rough finger into the hollow of his chin, just above the cut, and if he notices Tommy’s breathing stutter, he shows no sign of it. “We’ll be alright. Rest, eh, Tommy?”

It’s as he expected – Solomon’s kindness is far worse than any blow he could’ve dealt.

He can bear it, though. He will. He stands up shakily, nods to MacDonald and picks his way out of sickbay. The smell of his own blood is still sharp in his nostrils. He can feel Tozer watching him – its a weighty thing, his way of looking, presses between Tommy’s shoulder blades and curls around his ribs. He doesn’t trust himself to look back.

When he gets to his cabin, Billy’s wiping up the last of the blood spattered over his mirror. The razor, first thing he bought with his first month’s pay, is clean as well, sitting innocently on the top of the cabinet with his comb. “You didn’t have to,” Tommy says.

“Who else was going to?” Billy asks. He looks Tommy up and down in his usual way, as though wondering how exactly he got saddled with him. Tommy doesn’t quite know either. “You want to be careful, you know.”

“What d’you mean?” Tommy asks. Billy doesn’t answer, but he gets up and pulls at Tommy’s arm, turns it over to inspect the brownish remnant of Sol’s fingerprints on the inside of his wrist, and tuts.

“If you’re going to let that man fuck you,” he says, says _fuck_ like a knife through the ribs, and _that man_ with no inflection at all, he could be speaking of anyone, and Tommy supposes that is how men like he and Billy survive, “you should at least teach him how to do it without hurting you.”

Tommy yanks his arm back, a bit too fast, because that tells Billy all he wants to know, doesn’t it? Even if its not true, will never be true, because he...well, he ran away, after all. He had what he wanted for a shining second and then he ran because better he do that than for Tozer to take it back, like he would have, like men with strong shoulders and ordinary wants always would.

He’s a fool, but he’s not _stupid_. He tells Billy as much, that he’s on the wrong end of the chain. “Oh?” Billy says. “Well, you ought to tell him not to be so bloody obvious, anyhow. Someone might notice.”

Tommy washes down quickly, pulls on a clean shirt. Billy’s leant up against the side wall, eyeing him like you would a puppy that’s run through the mud and tracked it over the carpet. He buttons his cuff over the marks on his wrist, and decides against asking Billy what he means again.

“Alright then, lad, lets be having you,” Jim Daly’s voice sounds, followed by his grinning face round the curtain.

“Christ, not you as well,” Billy mutters, “He’s had a fright -”

“I have _not_ , Billy,”

“- he needs quiet, not a bunch of lobsterbacks hanging all over him.”

Daly rolls his shoulders, as though shucking Billy’s words right off. “We’ll be gentle with him, don’t worry yourself. Aren’t we always, Tommy?”

Tommy tips his eyes up, shrugging into his waistcoat and jacket. His neck doesn’t half ache. “Oh, ever so.”

“No chance of a cuppa from you, then, Mr Gibson?” Daly asks, leering at Billy, who mutters something about castor oil if Daly doesn’t mind himself. This only makes Jim laugh more.

“I’ll tell Jopson,” Billy says shortly, gesturing to Tommy’s neck, as though the Captain’s steward won’t know what’s happened and have accounted for his absence already. “Don’t go letting them carry on, will you?”

“Christ,” Daly mutters, looking after Billy as he leaves the cabin, “Reckon I’ve any chance, Tommy? Find me a girl like that, I’ll be laughing. Keep me in check and all.”

Tommy shakes his head. “He’d eat you alive. If he were one, I mean,” he adds hastily, so as Jim knows he knows he’s joking.

“Aye well, what can you do? I’m weak for a pair of blue eyes, me,” Daly laughs, looking briefly back at Tommy. “Right, breakfast for invalids, c’mon now.” He takes hold of Tommy by the shoulders and steers him out into the mess.

He’s fumbling for an excuse even as Daly turns them towards the marines’ usual table, something about Jopson and laundry, because he can’t put himself in Sol’s way, not after all of it, his head still thick with all this longing he does not know what to do with. It’s pointless arguing with Jim, though.

Sol’s there alright, standing speaking to Private Heather, but he turns when Daly starts piping up about making room, blinks over at Tommy. Looks at Daly, then snorts. Easy as anything, he reaches and grabs Tommy by the scruff and hauls him to the bench, so suddenly that Jim loses his grip, almost topples over. Sol shoves Tommy down and shoulders his rifle. “I’ll be up top,” he says, then slouches off before any of them can speak.

“Don’t mind him,” Heather advises, and Tommy struggles to look as though he doesn’t. His neck is hot from the press of Sol’s hand. He lays his arm against the table, tugs his cuffs down. Billy’s pushed off somewhere, but Tommy hears his voice like a song.

_Someone might notice._

Not as though it matters. The bruises are almost gone now, and there’ll be no more where they came from. He’s carried them like jewels about his wrist, like a girl with a posy. He could’ve been content with that and all, had Sol not asked him what he had. He rubs at the back of his neck.

He’s not stepped foot in the armoury since, and he knows the rest of the lads are wondering about his distance lately. Sure enough, Hedges and Hammond crab claw him as soon as they come down, joshing him about his _war wound_ until Heather calls them off. Tommy lets them fuss him a bit, though, accepts a mug of tea which Wilkes pours with great ostentation, as though Tommy’s lady of the manor.

“No stewarding for you today, lad,” Heather tells him. “Sergeant’s orders.” He nods towards the ladderway as he speaks, after where Sol’s just gone up.

Tommy likes Heather, but he also thinks the man’s a lot cannier than he lets on. The way he turns and looks at Tommy now, he almost feels as though Heather knows exactly what happened in the armoury between him and Sol, though that’s nonsense, surely. He can’t. But if Tozer were to tell anyone about Tommy’s nonsense, he thinks, it _would_ be Bill.

A spark of some frightful boldness comes over him then, a rush of blood to the head. He must show Tozer he’s nothing daunted, Tommy decides, if they’re ever to return to anything like normal, because this _isn't_ , and Sol’s not a man to run from anything, less something’s running after him. Tommy won’t be that. He keeps his promises. As soon as breakfast is through and the dishes in the galley, he dashes back to his cabin. Shuts the curtain, and gets out his needle and thread.

He can make it right. He _has_ to.

It’s an hour through afternoon watch by the time he’s finished. His hands are stiff, fingers pricked and throbbing, a hard red line from scissors and needle pressed along his right forefinger. His leather thimble is nearly worn through from working the sail-needle into the pelt, but when he snaps off the last thread with his teeth, he feels as sure as any surgeon that his work is true.

Slowly, just to make certain, he slides one mitten onto his hand, flexes his fingers to check there’s the right amount of give. He can’t help but smile, small and proud.

He hides the mittens away and slips down to the orlop, to the storeroom he knows is unlocked. It’s not thieving, to take a bolt of fine linen, he could easily be mending one of the surgeons dress shirts, or fixing the tear Neptune made when he got hold of Mr Helpman’s bedsheets while they were hanging up to dry.

Back in his cabin, he wraps the mittens carefully, and then goes to the top drawer to find some string. He’s a vague idea of leaving them in Sol’s sea chest, though he supposes the proper thing to do would be to give them straight to him, certainly the brave thing.

 _Someone might notice._ Only there’s nothing _to_ notice, Tommy’s sure.

String’s at the back, anyhow, and he’s time, if he can – Tommy stops, finds himself looking down, almost startled.

His logbook is missing. It goes into the drawer every night, force of habit, he always worries he’ll spill water over it otherwise, or knock it over dressing in the dark and crumple the pages. It’s a battered old thing, like _Terror_ , and only his by accident, but he’s fond of it, so he tries to treat it gently.

Tommy blinks. He might think he’d left it in the armoury, but he hasn’t been _into_ the bloody armoury for nearly a week, ever since he unhooked himself from Sol’s arms and left, sick and miserable from wanting what he couldn’t have. And it was in the drawer this morning, he’s sure.

Had Billy moved it, when he was in here cleaning? He can’t think so. He shuts the drawer, checks the one underneath. Nothing but his wig and woolens. He’s halfway across the cabin, ready to go and brave Billy in the wardroom where he’ll be laying the table and make certain he hadn’t moved the logbook when he was in here this morning, when a loose corner of his bedspread catches his eye.

Billy definitely wouldn’t have left that.

He pulls back the sheets from the end, and sure enough there it is, face down with the spine cracked. Tommy has to suppress an indignant snort as he rights the book. Surely he’d remember leaving it so, he’s not so far gone yet as to put his cabin into such a state. As he lifts it, there’s a crackle of paper, and a scrap of torn page slips onto the floor.

Tommy kneels, fumbles a little with the note, because that’s what it is, he can see the ink bleeding through the back, and rocks back on his haunches as he reads it. Reads it again, just to be sure. The watch bells are sounding, but Tommy scarcely hears them. He doesn’t think, just then, blinking down at the words on the paper, he could get up if he tried.

~

_Tommy forgive me I said I’d leave you alone but god knows I lied earlier I can’t do without you and you looked at me like you felt the same you’re cruel to me to make me hope but there’s no help for it I think._

_Come to me won’t you. I’ll be good to you, I swear._

_Same place as before. First watch. Seven bells._

_Please._

~

 _Well, my love, what now?_ Caro lays her cool, dead hand on his cheek. She only calls him that when he’s being an idiot, and he thinks if there’s any time he’s earned it its now, sitting on the cold floor of the armoury with his hands on his knees.

 _None of your concern, lass,_ he’d tell her, and she’d hook up her brow, scoff at him, just as Bill had earlier on deck.

 _I know you_ , he’d said. _I can tell when you’re sulking._ _I won’t ask why, but if I’ve to lock you and our Tommy in the gun-room pantry so’s to sort the two of you, don’t think I won’t do it._

 _Was he wrong, then?_ Caro might ask.

He hadn’t been sulking. Watch duty’s watch duty, precious little to look at save the ice. Try to forget the sour swoop of his stomach every time he sees Daly with his hands all over Tommy. But fine, Bill’s rarely wrong. Catch Sol telling him that, though. Head’s big enough already.

Sol shuts his eyes. If he turns round she’ll go, and he doesn’t feel ready for that, not yet. _Oh, I should think you are._ Light as a speck picked off her apron, or a half full pitcher of ale swung over him to drive him out of her father’s tavern, last stop before the great north road, home to see his sister and the new bairnie. _What, they give you a poxy red jacket and you_ _think you’re god’s gift?_

He’d known that night he’d have her, or be damned.

Would that he could grasp for such certainty now. Many a thing he should’ve done, and this seems the hardest, this sitting here and not knowing, hoping. He’d thought he’d known, back on shore, when to push his advantage, and Christ he’d nearly done it just last night, waited 'til the rest of Terror were bedded down, eyes on Tommy’s curtain til the lamp went out.

Unsure of his welcome, though, isn’t he? Earlier, in sickbay, he’d felt Tommy’s heartbeat under his thumb and it was all he could do not to toss the lad over his shoulder and carry him bodily out of there, lay him down on the nearest bunk and…

It doesn’t bear going on with. They’re on a fucking discovery service vessel, of her majesty’s navy – bound for the Northwest passage and for glory. For the girls of Oahu he’d promised to show Tommy, only now all the thought of that island stirs up inside him is the idea of a deep wide bed in a cheap boarding house, just the two of them, Tommy’s curls spilt against the white of the sheets.

That light, silvery laugh. _Never known you be willing to wait, Sol._

He’s waiting now, isn’t he? Even if its only to be told he’s full of it. He’s left it up to Tommy, tied down the screaming urge to run the lad down and demand he speak to Solomon plainly, tell him once and for all what manner of thing it is between them.

A creak of boots on the deck, and its a step he’d know anywhere, a little uncertain, quiet. Tommy has his logbook tucked under his arm, and when he looks at Sol he swallows, hard. _There now_ , Caro murmurs, leaning in to kiss him, very gently, on side of his face. _Go canny_ _, won’t you?_

Tommy’s still looking at him. “Alright?” he manages – gives him a bit of a once over, from his curly head down. No point acting as though he doesn’t see him, is there? He’s a feeling that’s what got them into this mess.

“Are you mad?” Tommy asks him.

He lifts the logbook, waves it. It’s so sudden Sol almost laughs. He might be, a bit. He looks to the side at last, finds nothing but empty space and a crate of shot. He almost wants to ask Tommy – but no, how can he? _Here, Tommy, I talk to my wife sometimes,_ _just_ _since she died. See her here and there. And I think I might love you, what d’you say to that?_

When Sol doesn’t answer, Tommy drops the book onto the bench and sits across from him on the deck. Just as easy as that. “Your signature's in the muster book, Sol. If command had got hold of that note…”

“ _That’s_ what you’re here for? Give me a lecture? I can get one of those anytime, all I need to do’s swear in front of Lieutenant Irving.” Sol bristles, crosses his arms over his bent knees.

“No,” Tommy says, very quietly. He’s not close, but in the light from the lamps Sol can see the neat row of stitches on his neck, the stubble breaking through the soft skin of his jaw. Wouldn’t mind a taste of it, he’s honest with himself. “Came like you asked.”

And he had, hadn’t he?

“Tommy…” He lets out a great long breath, but Tommy’s up again, and quick as you like he’s pushed his way between Sol’s lower legs. Sol reaches up, holds him by the hips, in the main because he’s not sure he could stand to have him closer and not touch him. Missed him, so he has, these past days. “What am I gonna do with you, eh?”

“Anything,” Tommy says, a crack in his voice Sol can’t stand. “Anything you like, Sol. Only don’t -”

Oh, that’s enough of _that_ – he gives Tommy a good, hard yank, pulls him, by means of hair and sleeve and strong grip under his arm, to settle atop his legs, close enough to kiss again. Tommy makes a noise, only soft, and grips onto his shoulders. He fits just perfect, the little weight of him a lovely ache. “Don’t what?” He leans in, nudges Tommy’s cheek with his nose. He can smell the upper deck on him, over-stewed tea, clean sweat, hardtack baking. “Said I’d be good to you, din’t I?”

Tommy nods, nuzzling into Sol’s hair, like he can’t help himself, and Christ, the lad’s going to make him hard if he doesn’t watch it. “I burnt the note. I...when you said, we shouldn’t, that you shouldn’t have asked, I...I thought I’d be better off not to hope. Kills you, it does, Sol. To want a man like you.”

“You’re one to talk,” Sol murmurs. “Made a right mess of me, you have. With your pretty arse, and your smile. Doing for me, like a good lass. Your eyes. Witched me, I reckon.” There, it's said - and it’s easy, now he has him, startlingly easy, to splay his hand on Tommy’s back, tug him in close.

That noise Tommy makes, a laugh edging into a sob – Sol leans forward, catches Tommy’s mouth with his own. Tommy rocks against him as they kiss, and its like a rush of hard bright air of a morning, filling him up and up, only there’s no need to let it go, let Tommy go, because he’s here, here for Sol and in Sol’s arms, and he can have him.

And that’s frightening in itself, beyond the fear that he’ll flit off again and this time Sol _will_ have to chase him to ground. Because its _Tommy_ , his Tommy with his steady watchful gaze and quiet cleverness, innocent in ways he shouldn’t be and hard in ways that’ll surprise you, his mate and one of his lads _, his._ He doesn’t want to lose him.

But he can take his time, like this. He’s just not sure he’s of any particular mind to. Tommy’s teeth are worrying at the skin of his neck, and Sol runs both hands soothingly up his sides.

“Christ,” he mutters, “let me have you, aye? Let me look after you.” It’s all he wants.

“Yes, yes, please,” Tommy says, as though he can’t quite believe him. Sol can fix that, alright.

He has to put Tommy back on his thighs a little to get the lad’s trousers open – Tommy looks at him like he’s doing a wonder, still, but its _him_ who’s the wondrous thing, lips swollen from kissing, hair mussed to hell and back and that sweet flush patching all up his neck. Sol might never get tired of looking at him, if he didn’t have matters just as pressing to attend to.

Tommy’s prick's a lovely thing, jutting proud and thick from dark hair at the apex of his thighs, so red it surely must be painful. He gasps when Sol takes him in hand, then leans down to bite at his own knuckles, keep the noise at bay. Sol half wishes he wouldn’t, but for all it seems like they’re a step out of time, almost, fact is they’re not. Far from it.

Oahu, that’s one thing it’s good for – let Tommy make as many sweet little sounds as he likes then.

His own cock, thickening up, presses into Tommy’s lean thigh as the lad rocks into Sol’s grasp, and he groans. Puts his mouth to Tommy’s cheek, face lost in the wild riot of his hair. Tommy reaches for him again, pressing down against him. It’s good like this, Tommy fever bright in his arms, his hips rolling tightly downwards like he can’t get enough.

“Where’s the fire, hey?” Sol asks, cupping Tommy’s cheek. “No rush, is there?” He slides his hand round, over his spine, finds the back of Tommy’s breeches and slips his hand down inside, shoves his shirt out of the way, gets a good handful, _fuck,_ and brings him closer.

“No rush?” Tommy looks at him like he’s announced he plans to dance a jig to Erebus in the altogether. “If someone finds us – here, just let me -” He wriggles back, caught between Sol’s hand down his trousers, which he seems to like just fine, and his chest. Tries to get a hand round his cock on top of Sol’s, and whines something awful when Sol shifts so as he can’t.

Oh, _Tommy_. “Shh,” Sol murmurs, stroking the hot, soft skin he’s found under Tommy’s clothes, works his prick with the other hand. He’d have the lad without a scrap of clothing, if he could, look at all of him and touch him besides, but he’s right, they can’t be pissing about just now. “You’re my little pearl, Tommy. Yeah?”

“Oh... _oh_ ,” Tommy’s breathing so hard his chest quivers, and Sol reaches out to hold him steady. Strokes him in such a way as to draw him out a little more, hear those low sounds of want he’s only had cause to imagine before now.

“No-one’s taking you away from me,” he continues. “No-one, you hear?” He squeezes Tommy’s ripe little arse, digs his nails in a little, fancies to see if he can bruise him there and all.

“Sol…” Tommy murmurs, and he burrows in against Solomon’s shoulder, nipping at his neck again. He’ll have bruises of his own. Have to start shaving, say he’s cut himself, though not so bad as Tommy has. Sol’s heart skips just as it did this morning when they told him, and he finds the cut and presses it, takes Tommy’s answering whimper as proof that he’s here, fine, safe, all Sol’s own.

“Use your words, pet.” Sol tells him.

Tommy makes a hurting sound, pressing his face back into Sol’s shoulder. Sol gives him a kiss on the ear, wonders if Tommy knows just how sweet he is. He mutters something into the depths of Sol’s jacket, then, when Sol squeezes his neck, says it again, scarcely any louder. “Want your bloody cock.”

Christ. He grabs Tommy’s hair, pulls his head back. He’s an inch away from spilling into his smalls, bollocks pulled up tight and aching, and the lad goes and says something like that? He gives Tommy another pull, just how he’d work himself off, and he seems to like it well enough, because his eyes roll back, prick leaking into Sol’s fist. “Please,” Tommy manages, “ _Please_ let me.”

Sitting where he is, lap-full of Armitage shaking against him, the lad’s pretty yard hot in his hand, his own stiffer than a fire poker besides, he’s not minded to let him go anywhere. He palms Tommy’s arse again, gets a finger into his cleft and touches him there, just gently. He might not’ve sported with a bloke before, but he’s done it arseways a time or two, knows to go slow. Looks like Tommy never has, though, sound he makes, and doesn’t that just bear thinking on further?

Not now, though. “Easy,” Sol says. “Easy, love.”

“D’you...d’you want…” Tommy’s boss eyed with it, rutting up into Sol’s hand and back down against his finger, to where he’s making light teasing circles, just letting Tommy know he’s there. Know what’s his. “We can, just, I’m not, I...”

Sol grunts, tipping Tommy closer, though he’s beginning to think he’ll never get close enough. “Careful. Might just ruin you.” Tommy kisses him again, wild and quick, their foreheads mashed together. Lad’s mouth will be raw soon, way he goes at it, Sol thinks. “Alright, pet,” he murmurs, working his hand back around Tommy’s straining prick. He spreads his legs a little, lets Tommy get a feel of what he’s hankering for. “You can have it. Long as you let me see you’re my boy.”

And Tommy, bless him, does just that. Comes into Sol’s hands, lets his desperate noises be swallowed by Sol’s mouth. Rests against him, shaking, while Sol strokes down his back, his thighs, the warm, plush skin of his arse, hot from Sol’s touch. He wants to peel off Tommy’s trousers, bend him over, find the imprints of his own hands and nails in that winter-pale skin. He’s tender between his thighs, twitches when Sol strokes him, and he can’t resist lingering there a while, just touching.

He kisses Tommy again. Could do it, alright – do it all, slick up Tommy’s thighs and press himself into that beckoning heat, spend across his skin, lick him clean and kiss it back into his mouth. He slides that away for some future time. The ice won’t let them go any time soon, he can wait, now he has this. 

Then Tommy pulls off, wet mouthed and panting – buttons himself into his smalls, neat and quick as a doxy, backs off of Sol’s lap, and gets down on his knees.

“Tommy,” he says, when those quick steward’s fingers open his coat, loosen his braces. He pats Sol’s hip, looking plaintively at him. Sol puts a hand to the armoury wall, pulling himself upright. His legs feel hollow. “Tommy, you -” The shock of air that hits him when Tommy unbuttons his trousers, hands trembling, is gone almost in an instant as the lad bends forward and seals his lips over the head of Sol’s prick. “ _Christ_ ,” he hisses, fisting Tommy’s hair in one hand.

He could spend, he realises, just like this, leave a right mess on Tommy’s neat uniform. Thought of it makes his cock twitch, and he feels it, up against the soft part at the back of Tommy’s throat. He ought to pull him off, make him go easier, but Tommy’s licking and sucking and _drooling_ round the weight of Sol’s prick in his darling mouth and Christ if it isn’t the loveliest sight.

Lad doesn’t have the faintest clue what he’s doing, that’s quickly clear. He pulls off choking at a slight thrust of Sol’s hips, but when Sol reaches for him he shakes his head – licks his palm and wraps a hand round the base, looking up at him all the while. Tries again with his mouth, can’t quite get the hang of it, and draws off. His brow pushes down like it does when he’s thinking, and then he leans in and tongues the whole way up the pounding vein on the underside of it.

Sol nearly shouts. He leans back against the armoury wall, knocking his fist down hard, fights the urge to rut up into all that soft near heat. Tommy licks along his length. Kisses his balls where they’re drawn up tight, and sucks gently at the head of him. _Messy pup,_ Sol thinks, stroking Tommy’s hair. Fuck if he isn't good for it, though. _Keen_ , hadn’t Little said, and been righter than he or Sol knew?

He can feel his pulse beating in his temples, Tommy’s too, fast under his hands, as like as two creatures ever could be. It’s this that sends him towards the edge, and Tommy’s wet, helpless sounds that tip him over.

“Fuck – fuck I’ll not last, Tommy -” And he doesn’t, he rocks his head back and groans out his ending into the welcoming heat of Tommy’s throat, hands clutching at that mess of sweat-damp curls, and Tommy kneels between his thighs, mouth stretched red around his cock, and takes it all. “Oh, Tommy,” he sighs – his legs are aching, his fist as well. Tommy’s a state and all, lips swollen, wet with spit and – fuck – Sol’s spend.

The rest of it he’s swallowed.

“Told you,” Tommy says, a little hoarse, resting his head against Sol’s hip.

“S’that?” Sol asks, though he thinks he knows well enough. He teeters back to the deck, sliding down to take the weight off his legs. Brings Tommy with him, lets him lay his head in his lap. There, now, that’s good and all. Tommy kisses Sol’s spent cock, as though that’s what he’s there for, and smiles big when Sol pushes him, gently, so as he can right his trousers. He holds onto his hair, though, so he doesn’t think of getting up.

They’ll not be missed. Not yet.

~

He sees her in the morning. He’s all but alone on deck, minding Neptune during divine service, an exercise for which the Newfoundland has no patience at all. Nep’s hackles raising is the first indication there’s anything wrong.

“Go on,” Tommy tells him, chucking the rag ball across the deck. Neptune hesitates, nose turned to the wind, but the ball hits the port-side gunwale and bounces back, which is enough for him to forget whatever scent he’s caught and leap after it, barking joyfully. While Neptune noses the ball across the icy step to the quarterdeck, where Tommy will have to coax him down from without bloody trespassing, Tommy tucks his gloved hands under his armpits, looking out to sea.

Or what will be the sea, soon enough. He’d been surprised to find he missed it – he’s no sailor, not truly, you’d not catch him up the rigging or holystone in hand – but these months iced in, for all their unexpected delights (he hugs himself harder, feels out the ache in his ribs from strong hands pressed against them in the night), have served to teach him well enough the pull of the sea, why the men like to speak of her as though she’s their own.

Tommy has found himself wedded this winter, just the same. If its to a red coat and his own name whispered in a soft northern burr, those are his own sympathies to keep. The sun, what precious little they have of it, glints white on the ice. Far off, he thinks he sees something move, but when he blinks its gone again. Neptune comes back to Tommy’s side, noses his pocket in hope of treats. Tommy shushes him, and the silly thing whines, then growls.

Makes Tommy jump, it does, but he swiftly realises it’s not for him – Neptune shoves his way between Tommy and the rail, pitching up as though he means to climb over. “Don’t you dare, now,” Tommy says, getting an arm over the dog's middle. Neptune whines again, and this is why Ned is better than him on dog duty, Tommy thinks, as the newfie’s tail thumps against his legs – Genge might be short but he’s shoulders like a bloody docker – meantime, Tommy’s struggling not to let Neptune’s weight tug him over the side.

The dog might manage it and all, if not for a weight almost equal to Neptune settling at Tommy’s back, warm broad chest and the smell of pipe tobacco. “Sol, give us a hand, would you,” he says, trying to hide how much it lights him up, being in Solomon’s arms.

“Thought that’s what I was doing, aye?” Sol squeezes his thick arms round Tommy, quick enough that anyone looking might not notice. Tommy doesn’t think that anyone is, and besides, they’ve a shaggy-furred excuse for their current position. Sol reaches to stroke Neptune’s ears. “What’s gotten into him, you think?”

“Dunno,” Tommy says. “Scented somethin’, p’raps.”

“Scented Diggle cooking Sunday lunch, more like.” Sol snorts, then presses his face into Tommy’s neck, mouth against the fading scar where Doctor MacDonald’s stitches have dropped out over the last few days.

Tommy blinks heavily, love rolling through him as sure and hot as anything he’s ever felt. “Sol,” he murmurs. What he wouldn’t give to push himself back, just so, into his man’s strong grip. He could almost play they’re home in Chatham, or on the Mersey, spotting ships off the dock. Dangerous game, yeah, for Tommy’s like to contemplate, that’s true. Or it would be, if his heart weren’t already entirely Solomon’s.

Tired of being kept from whatever it is he wants, Neptune drops back to all four paws and regards them steadily. Prances a little, and Tommy’s obligated to go and retrieve the ball. Neptune jumps up at the sight of it, long tongue hanging out and disturbance quite forgotten. He tosses the ball a little farther than he should, perhaps, because it means he can press into Sol’s side, no more than is proper, this time, its cold on deck and usual for mates to stand close, keep the heat in.

If Sol turns his head ever so slightly and busses a kiss onto Tommy’s hair, well, there’s nobody to know that but them.

This is what Billy meant, Tommy thinks, this reckless feeling, and he knows the other steward was being kind, in his way, warning Tommy off of Tozer. He wasn’t to know its already far too late. Tommy considers himself well and truly caught, and happy to be so. And even more, that it seems this small thing between them makes Sol happy too.

Neptune’s abandoned the ball, now, spotted the little brown tail of one of the ship’s cats under the edge of the canvas, and is in dedicated pursuit. “His own fault if he gets scratched,” Tommy murmurs.

“Nah, she’s a sweetheart, that small one. Here, reminds me of someone.” Sol nudges him, and Tommy’s surprised his ears, deaf and hearing both, don’t glow with how hot they feel. “Now back home, we had a bruiser – Pipkin, Caro called him, but he were the size of a bloody spaniel and twice as bloodthirsty. Still, she had him from a kitten. Used to see him on her shoulder when she were pulling pints at the bar.”

Tommy grins. “She sounds nice. Your Caroline,” he says. He lays the edge of his gloved finger against Sol’s, tucked warm into the bearskin mittens Tommy sewed him. He wishes Solomon would talk to him of her again, from simple curiosity, and because Sol loved her, and Tommy thinks it hurts him still.

Sol makes a rumbling sound, fiddles with his pipe. Tommy takes his cue from that, doesn’t say anything else, just keeps his hand next to Sol’s, should he need it.

“Here – y’see that, lad?” Sol asks. Tommy looks where he’s pointing, doesn’t – and then, like paper sliding into frame, he does.

“That’s never…” he says, only for Sol to hush him, hand on his arm.

Atop a ridge of ice some hundred feet away, she’s standing level with them, wide paws planted firmly atop the edge. She looks none the worse for wear for the long winter – a little leaner, perhaps, but aren’t they all?

“It is,” Sol breathes, “I can see the shot mark on her side. Christ, I’d thought…” He doesn’t need to finish. Neither of them had ever imagined to see the polar bear again. “Hello there, pretty lass,” Sol says, for all as if the bear can hear them, “how about that, then?”

Tommy feels tight in his chest. “D’you think she has?” he asks, looking at Sol’s mittens. “Had another?”

“Pretty queen like that?” Sol says. “Aye, no doubt on it.”

“Good, then,” Tommy says. “Should we…” He runs out of whatever he was going to say, because Sol is looking at him. Slow, careful like, he reaches out and presses his mittened hand just under Tommy’s eye.

The fur, worn a little from the shape of his hand and the grip of a musket handle, tickles. “You’re tired.”

“And who’s faults that, then?” Tommy grins. As though he’d have it any other way. He feels bright and shining under Sol’s attentions, like a queen of old on silken cushions. “Shall I fetch the lads?” he asks, jerking his head back in the bear’s direction. He doesn’t want to, but he will if Solomon asks.

“No,” Sol shakes his head. He knocks his arm into Tommy’s, a thing that still leaves his head spinning, in spite of all he knows now. “Leave her.” He looking right at Tommy now, and for all the sun’s sharp in his eyes, he knows when Sol’s smiling. “Reckon she’s come to wish us luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the that on that!  
> more seriously, thank you so much to everyone who has read, commented and left kudos, I've adored writing this fic. If you'd like to see how these boys get on, Jopson will be picking up the narrative in this verse at...some point in the near future, as is his right since I spun this off from his fic in the first place.  
> You can also find me sighing over cold boys on [tumblr](https://regularmongoose.tumblr.com/)  
> and [twitter](https://twitter.com/itgottheleg/).

**Author's Note:**

> *expires under the weight of the multiplicity of tozers in the devon/somerset area while attempting to do background research*
> 
> side note: i know we see tozer smoking cigarettes with hickey et al in episode seven, but pipes were a lot more common at the time (maybe he loses his at carnivale?? ...and now i've made myself sad again)


End file.
